A collection of One-Shots and First chapters
by DarkLord98
Summary: Yo, here is where I'll post the first chapters of story ideas that I'm interested in doing in the future, and some One-Shots, enjoy, or whatever...Now rated M due to a smutty preview.
1. A Game of Seekers and Wizards

**AN: So, remember how I've been talking about a miscellaneous box where I'd put the first chapters of any story ideas that stuck around my head long enough? Well, here's the first addition to that misc-box.**

 **The name of this fic idea is "A Game of Seekers and Wizards", a Huntik/Harry Potter SI fanfic. Now, you might not find any HP stuff in this chapter, but eh, it's in London, Huntik is magic-oriented, but doesn't have all that much detail in it.**

"Regular Speech"

"Face the wrath of my **'Skill'** , you fool!"

 _'Thinking'_

 ***Titan speaking through the bond***

 **#Phones and other equivalents.#**

 **[Game Data and Gamer Skills]**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

* * *

 **[London-?-?-?]**

"Ugh, what the hell hit me..." A young man grunted as he awoke from his slumber. Looking around, he could see that he was in an alleyway, and if the sound of cars was any indication, it was near the road.

 _'Okay, how did I get here?'_ The young man wondered as he picked himself up from the pavement, wiping away any dust from his forest green hoodie and black jeans. Hoping that he didn't get mugged, he patted his pockets, sighing in relief as he felt his wallet and his Swiss army knife where they should be.

But just to be sure, he whipped out his wallet.

 **[Observation]**

 **-Accessory: Wallet  
A leather wallet that is meant to hold money, credit cards, coupons and other methods of payment.  
Durability: 49/50 **

_'Wut?'_ Brian froze as he looked at the window hanging in front of his wallet. But the confusion lasted only for a short while as his brain rebooted. Okay then, so he apparently had The Gamer.

" **[Status]** " he said, causing another window to appear in front of him.

 **[Status]**

 **/The Gamer\  
Brian McRemitz LV: 9  
EXP: 875/900  
\Human/**

 **HP: 120  
MP: 100 **

**STR: 21{+15]  
INT: 25  
VIT: 18  
WIS: 28  
DEX: 24  
AGI: 15 **

**Points: 0  
Money: 0 **

**Perks/Buffs/Debuffs:  
** **Perk: Bookworm: NEEERRRRD! {+1 to INT and WIS for each Lore Text read. +2 to INT and WIS for each Skill book learned}**

Blinking owlishly, Brian took out the money from his wallet and shoved into the Money portion of the Status screen, and as he expected, the surface of the window rippled like water as the money touched it, sinking into it completely. **[+430$]**

"...Holy fucking shit, I HAVE THE GAMER!" Brian shouted, before suddenly calming down.

"Huh, so that's what the Gamer's Mind feels like… I wonder what **[Skills]** I have?" He wondered, a new screen appearing in front of him.

 **[Skills:]**

 **Gamer's Mind |?|  
Passive LV: MAX **

**Gamer's Body |?|  
Passive LV: MAX **

**Knife proficiency |?|  
Passive LV: 6  
EXP: 15/600 **

**Observation |?|  
Active/Passive LV: 1  
EXP: 10/100 **

**Theft |?|  
Active/Passive LV: 2  
EXP: 22/200**

 **Crafting |?|  
Active/Passive LV: 12  
EXP: 15/1200 **

**Driving |?|  
Active/Passive LV: 14  
EXP: 35/1400**

 **Celtic Runes |?|  
Active/Passive LV: 8  
EXP: 34/800 **

**ID Create |?|  
Active LV: 1  
EXP: 0/100 **

**ID Escape |?|  
Active LV: 1  
EXP: 0/100 **

"Okay then." Brian raised an eyebrow at the rather list of skills he had. He was rather surprised that the ability to drive a car was listed as a Skill, but then again, Dishwashing was also a Skill. And what was most surprising to him, his experience in carving some small wooden talismans, and Celtic runes actually translated to actual skills.

"Hmm, let's see how well this works, **[ID: Create]**." He said, as a grey sphere formed around his hand before expanding rapidly, coloring the whole world in a grey-ish tint, and the sounds he heard before disappeared.

"Wow, this is pretty damn cool." Brian grinned as walked out of the alleyway, looking at the world around him. Now, if him having The Gamer was any indication, then he was probably going to have to fight against something. Or the world decided to just see what would happen if you gave some normie an OP power, and then let that guy loose on the world.

The way he was right now, he would not be winning any fights with brute strength, so the first course of action should be making Skills.

"Hmm, but how do I go about doing this?" He wondered. It wasn't like he had any supernatural ability, aside from the runes. Hell, he didn't even know what world he was in, if he had even been thrown into a new world, but for now, he'd assume that he wasn't back in his own world.

The only thing he knew about his current world was that London existed, since not only did he recognize the streets from the few times he had been in London, but he could also see the Big Ben quite clearly, so that kind of limited the choices a bit.

"God, I hope I'm not in Hellsing." Brian recoiled at the thought. No matter how hard he trained, there was no way he was going to survive THAT kind of a shitstorm.

Deciding to put the identity of his current world off for the moment, Brian started pacing, wondering how the hell he would make Energy Bolt. Han Jee-Han had somebody show him how to use Mana, but he didn't have that kind of luxury.

"Okay, think Brian, think... maybe it's a mental thing?" He clenched his hand tightly, and then imagined Mana forming around it. And after a while, a flicker of blue energy sparked from his clenched fist. Grinning, he squeezed harder, more of the same blue energy sparking from his hand before coalescing into a blue shroud surrounding it.

 **[Passive Skill: «Mana manipulation» has been created!]**

' _Okay, that's step one, now for stage two…'_ he unclenched his hand, imagining the energy forming into a ball, and to his joy, the energy responded to his will, forming into a sphere slightly bigger than a tennis ball. With a flick of his finger, the ball shot at the wall, completely destroying the brick it hit dead-on, knocking off the bricks that were 50 centimeters away from it.

 **[Active Skill: «Energy Bolt»has been created!]**

"Well, damn, that sure packed a punch." Brian muttered, slightly in awe, slightly in fear as he imagined what would happen if that hit a normal person. Shaking his head, he picked up one of the bricks that his attack had knocked off from the wall.

He might as well test out how his other skills worked. Calling up the Mana, he directed it to his index finger, and proceeded to draw one of the safer runes, Isa. Oh sure, he could've drawn a Sowlio, but he'd rather not deal have the brick in his hand suddenly igniting.

And it wasn't long after his finger left the brick that frost started forming over the brick, originating from the spot where he applied rune, and the frost kept on coming, so Brian set the brick down, as to avoid the possibility of getting caught in the freezing effect. And in about a minute and a half, the brick had grown a 5-centimeter-thick shell of ice around itself, and the surrounding 20-30 centimeters were also covered in ice.

 **[Active Skill: «Runecast: Isa» has been created!]**

' _So that's the effect of Isa, let's see what Sowlio does.'_ Brian thought, picking up another brick, inscribed the Sowlio rune on it, and dropped it onto the frozen part of the pavement before the rune could take effect, and possibly burn his hand.

The brick didn't catch fire, which was quite within Brian's expectations, but it did start glowing red, the ice around it steaming profusely, the amount of steam increasing as the glow grew brighter, and the brick started to slowly lose its shape.

 **[Active Skill: «Runecast: Sowlio» has been created!]**

"Well, that's interesting." Brian noted, crouching down to look at the deformation the Sowlio-brick was going through. It had taken the Isa-brick about half a minute to completely freeze over, but the Sowlio-brick had been glowing for a good minute now, but it was only now losing its shape, not to mention that it was already cooling down. Perhaps it was due to being in contact with the opposing element? Or perhaps it had something to do with the material the rune had been inscribed onto? He'd have to test the runes again on organic material to confirm the hypothesis.

Rising up, Brian walked away from the spot, just in case his experimentation followed him out of the Illusion Barrier.

After he was a couple of blocks away, he spotted another alleyway, with a pile of boxes blocking part of the view. Shrugging at the unexpected luck, Brian walked into the alleyway, and then behind the boxes.

"Alrighty then, **[ID Escape]**." The grey tint shattered apart like a panel of glass, the sound of the city returning as if a switch had been flipped.

However, Brian didn't have the time to take in the sounds, since he'd rather make sure that he was prepared for the possible shit-storm heading his way. And so, he exited the alleyway, and kept his ears open, trying to hear anything that could give him a solid lead on what world he was in.

* * *

"I can't believe you were so late. C'mon, let's hurry before the Huntik Foundation patsies find the Titan first." Brian's eyes snap forward, spotting a middle-aged woman with fair skin and red hair dressed in a sharp suit, the kind you see FBI and other government agents wear in movies, berating a man wearing the same get-up, who was carrying a suitcase, and although her eyes were covered by sunglasses, the same with her man, the furrowing of her brows was more than telling of her feelings towards the man.

 **[Observation]**

 **/Organization Grunt\  
UK Suit #4242 LV: 12  
\Human/**

 **HP: 120{+15]  
MP: 60**

 **Real name: Janet Reeds. Other information locked by «Mind Control: Araknos»**

 **EXP Yield: 1200  
Item Drop: 12950 pounds 1 Organization Suit{Equipment Set], 1 Redcap, 1 Mindrone, 1 Chaingolem**

* * *

 **[Observation]**

 **/Organization Grunt\  
UK Suit #6542 LV: 5  
\Human/**

 **HP: 50{+15]  
MP: 40**

 **Real name: Rick Smith. Other information locked by «Mind Control: Araknos»**

 **EXP Yield: 500  
Item Drop: 4300 pounds, 1 Organization Suit{Equipment Set], 1 Redcap, 1 Mindrone, 1 suitcase{Contains: ?, ?, ?]**

Brian made a snap decision to look down, as to avoid making it seem like he had heard what they were saying. _'Alright, alright, so it seems like in Huntik. FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!'_ Brian had only seen glimpses of the second season, but what little he had seen had something about the Huntik world being in danger of being attacked by Cthulu-esque monsters, which were summoned by some kind of ancient wraith, who apparently had Rasimov, the dark hole guy working for him.

Oh sure, he had watched the first season, and surfed the wiki on a few occasions, mostly looking at the Titan designs, but even he knew that despite the semi-cheery expression of the Huntik cartoon, the world was a crap-sack one.

While sure, he could try finding some civil job, and keep his nose out of the Seeker business, but that was rather unlikely, considering that Titans could act on their accord, even without a Seeker to command them, so, the best option right now was to get Titans of his own, and _then_ keep his nose out of the Organization's, the Foundation's and Blood Spiral's little three-way war.

Besides, these Suits were practically nothing more than flesh-puppets for the Professor's Araknos.

With those thoughts in mind, Brian just kept on walking, forming an Isa on the pavement by skidding his foot against the pavement a bit, keeping the Mana in the rune in check by tethering a strand of mana to himself, and after walking past the suits, let go of the strand, with one final pulse along it to trigger the trap.

The Suit didn't even notice it until it was too late, the icy shell encasing him completely. The normal people walking around screamed, understandably, as seeing a man suddenly turning into an ice sculpture wasn't a common thing.

The female suit reached out towards the frozen grunt's suitcase, only for the man to shatter, along with his suitcase. The panicking increased, as people started pushing each other away from the scene, somebody yelling about calling the cops.

 **[Enemy defeated! Item Drops stored to «Inventory»]**

 **[Player «Brian McRemitz» has gained 500 EXP. Level 10 reached!]**

 **[Active Skill: «Isa landmine» has been created!]**

Brian smiled a little, going along with the flow of the panicking people, flying under the radar of the female suit, who was looking around, trying to spot the person who attacked her subordinate. Eventually, she ran off, her hand going for her earpiece, no doubt to contact and warn the other goons.

Brian momentarily entertained the thought of following after her, but then his rationality and self-preservation kicked in. It didn't matter whether or not she called for back-up, as long as the puppet's death couldn't be traced back to him.

He had more important business to deal with, like bonding with a few recently emancipated Titans, and of course setting up a few things in case they proved to be rowdy.

* * *

 **AN: Abadiabadiaba that's all folks! So yeah, Brian's a bit more stealthy than the Edwards are, and brawnier, as evident by his physical stats.**

 **Also yeah, I'm kinda experimenting with the Gamer System, and I'm planning to do the same kind of experimentation with the SI mechanic.**

 **Oh, and if any of my DxD fans are reading this, consider this a tech demo of what's possible with Celtic Magic. #CelticMagic**

 **And as for what'll be next... I dunno, depends on what I get into the mood for writing. Might be a Pokemon SI, might be a Gurren Lagann SI, it all really depends.**

 **...**

 **You know what? Why don't you guys throw in a few ideas, and who knows, I might decide to write it, if the idea is interesting enough. All I ask is that it's in comprehensible grammar.**


	2. Gurren Lagann Gamer SISpiral Powerless

**Synopsis:** This, is NOT a story about a man who blew a hole in the Fate of a universe that was ruled by a cycle of violence. This is a story about a man who seeks to tamper with Fate, yet also make sure that the Fate of the Digger still had the same outcome, even if that would mean that he would have to stain his hands with blood...

* * *

 _ **You know how some people think how it would be awesome to be in, let's say Gurren Lagann, helping Team Dai-Gurren fight for humanity's survival? Well, it's not fun, well, unless you get off on getting smacked around in a Ganmen's cockpit by your opponent, a Beastman who has actual training in piloting these blasted things.**_

 _ **Now, some wise person might point say something like; "Uh, actually, since Beastmen are unable to use Spiral power, which the Ganmen were originally meant to be fueled by, humans are the best pilots for those.". Well, in case that wise guy didn't understand, we don't have Spiral Power, something that I had the "pleasure" of finding out myself,**_ _ **the hard way**_ _ **.**_

 _ **«Kier Fraga»**_

* * *

Kier Fraga woke up to the sound of beeping. For a while, he thought that it was just his alarm clock going off, but as he opened his eyes, he was met with a sight he didn't expect, but one that he recognized all too well, from an Anime he had recently finished.

"…Alright then, so how the fuck did I end up in the cockpit of a Ganmen?"

As Kier was busy trying to get the salvaged mech moving, to little avail, he was suddenly shaken as something impacted his Ganmen, knocking it onto the ground.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuuck…" Kier groaned out, managing to spot the Ganmen that attacked him from the cockpit's peripherals, and it one of those grunt-models, the spherical ground units from Parallel Works 8, the ones that looked like a skull, only it was painted with a brown color scheme instead of usual green. That gave Kier a little hint of exactly where he was.

If his memory served right, the Ganmen in the region that Guame controlled were colored with shades of brown, Thymilphl's were mostly green, he didn't know what kind of units Adiane used, most likely aquatic Ganmen, and Cytomander's were all sky-based ones.

 **[Observation]**

 **/Tokotsu\  
Chassis: 97/100%  
Charge: 58/100%**

Alright, so at least the opposing Ganmen wasn't in tip-top shape, but that wouldn't be of much help if he couldn't move his Ganmen. Also, apparently he had The Gamer…which would explain why he was so damn calm, when by all means, he should've been pissing his pants in fear.

 _ **«"HAHHAHAA! Y-You puny human actually thought that you could win in that scrapheap?"»**_ the pilot of the Tokotsu laughed, his Ganmen slapping its knee as it mimicked the expressions of its pilot. It was oddly enough by its lonesome self.

"C'mon, move dammit." Kier cursed silently as he pushed and pulled at the controls, trying to get the machine moving, only to be met with no response.

' _Dying here is unacceptable! I am not going to die!'_ Kier thought, gripping the controls tightly. Even if the chances of his survival would always be dicy in this world, he wou-No, _couldn't_ simply let himself die here. Sure, he could die against some other beastman, or possibly from starvation, but at least it wouldn't be by the hands of some filthy artificial animal.

 _«System reboot complete»_ The screens in the cockpit all flashed blue, a screen opening on one of the side monitors.

 **[Ganmen Status]**

 **/Onibi\  
Chassis: 91/100%  
Charge: 55/100%. «Energy Levels slowly rising…»**

 **[Active Skill: «Mana Charge» has been created!]**

 **[Passive Skill: «Mech Piloting» has been created!]**

"Alright then, time to start…" Kirei stated calmly, grabbing tightly onto my Ganmen's club -And he noted that his Ganmen's arm was of a stocky build, and dark green- as he piloted it to stand upright. Kier knew all too well that if he desired to make it out of this situation alive, he'd have to play smart. He couldn't just try and cover the club with this Mana, as he could feel the amount of Mana it was taking him to boost the Onibi's battery.

Looking around, he could see that they were in a flat environment, so any chances of going with guerrilla tactics were out.

 **«"Oh, so you actually managed to get that old model moving? However, don't think that it'll save you!"»** The beastmen roared, the Tokotsu charging at Kier, intending to go for a punch. Kier swerved the Onibi away from the attack, swinging the arm with the club at the extended arm, causing the Tokotsu to lose its balance, and with a great thud, it hit the ground.

Taking advantage of the situation, Kier startled the downed Ganmen with Onibi, and started bashing away with the club. Dents started forming on the Tokotsu's chassis, one after another, and Kier wasn't planning on stopping until his opponent was. A. WET. SPLAT. ON. THE. GROUND!

Not even the screams of the pilot gave him pause.

 **«Enemy has been defeated…»**

 **«Gain 4200 EXP»**

 **«Level 11 reached!»**

Letting go of the controls, Kier sighed as he leaned back on the cockpit's chair, shaking his head as he tried to make sense of the situation he was in. He had gone to sleep back his apartment in London, and then he woke up in the cockpit of a fictional machine, and he had just killed a being with said machine. And he had felt the pain, and he wasn't some all-powerful god, so yeah, he could count dreams out of the possible explanations to his situation.

So, for now, he'd just roll with this. Even with the Gamer's Mind skill no doubt working overtime, Kier didn't want to risk, well, shattering his mind as he tried to make sense of the situation.

"Well, that fight was pretty anticlimactic, not that I mind." Kier had expected the opposing pilot to roll away, or do something that would've extended the fight. Perhaps he got lucky by encountering a rookie pilot who got cocky. But no, his opponent made one sloppy mistake, a mistake that cost the pilot his life. And netted him a hefty EXP, which wasn't too surprising, considering that he had fought in a mecha battle, so the EXP yield should be higher, due to the increased danger.

Actually, since he had the Gamer, he should check his status.

" **«Status»**." Kier said, going with the usual thing that triggered the Gamer system.

* * *

 **[«Status»]**

 **/The Gamer\  
Kier Fraga LV: 11  
EXP: 475/1100  
\Human/**

 **HP: 150  
MP: 85/170**

 **STR: 16  
INT: 44  
VIT: 20  
WIS: 45  
DEX: 24  
AGI: 17**

 **Points: 15  
Money: 0**

Looking at his stat sheet, Kier could tell that the most important stat right now were his Intelligence and Wisdom stats, since those seemed to be increasing his Mana by 10 points for every 5 points in either one of them, and so, he added more points to them, 8 to Intelligence, and 7 to wisdom, just to balance them out.

 **«MP: 86/200»**

With nothing better to do, Kier grabbed hold of the controls and started moving away from the scene of battle, heading towards the closest hill in the vicinity. Sure, he needed to recharge his MP, most likely by creating the «Meditate» skill.

As he walked, Kier couldn't help but chastise himself for not interrogating the Beastman for information first, like where and when he was. Had Simon and gang already defeated Lord Genome, or was this still in the early days of Genome's human subjugation? Important information like that would've been useful in planning his next stage.

After Kier made it to the hill -which he was pleased to see had crevices that, by a rough estimation, were big enough for him to park his Ganmen there-, Kier let go of the controls, and simply relaxed, trying to empty his mind…

* * *

 **AN: Alright, I'm not going to lie, I made this on a whim. Don't expect me to make more of this particular story, since by god, there is NOT enough information to make a concrete Gurren Lagann fanfic. I mean, most of the Ganmen that appeared in the series were left un-named, without a proper picture of them.**

 **Also, in case any of you were curious, no, I wasn't planning on giving Kier access to Spiral Power, for a couple of reasons, although only one of them could hold water, that reason being The Gamer's Mind passive skill.**

 **See, we all know how it works; Gamer's Mind represses your emotional response to situations, thus allowing you to think calmly through it. Now, some of you might be thinking _"What's stopping a Gamer using Spiral Power?"_ well, the answer is quite simple.**

 **Spiral Power is activated by heightened emotions.**

 **I mean, look at every single time that a noteworthy amount of Spiral Power has been used, and every time, their user has been anything but calm. So, yeah, Kier is pretty much unable to use Spiral Power, thus, he has to rely on his Mana, and the battery of the Onibi to move it.**

 **And, The Gamer itself is weaker than Spiral Power, so him getting huge amounts of EXP from beating people who are in giant robots won't actually be a game-changer.**

 **Now, as for what I possibly had in mind for this particular story idea, I had two possible routes:**

 **1: Kier would meet with the Black Siblings, after they had met Kamina, and then he'd partner up with them, and eventually, Team Dai-Gurren.**

 **2: Kier would meet the group from Parallel Works 6, although, I would alter some things about them, and come up with some stuff of my own, since we know pretty much jack-shit about them. Also, I'd turn that Lagann silver, and keep their version of Gurren Lagann Silver, since I feel like that would look better.**

 **And eventually, after hijacking the ship from Parallel Works 6, which was controlled by the brain-washed sister of the blue-haired kid you see screaming at the end(*), Team Silver Oni would join up with Team Dai Gurren.**

 **In either works, he'd make sure that Kamina would die in a heroic manner during the battle to take Dai-Gunzan, since yeah, that's what inspired the team, and Simon to keep fighting.**

 ***: If you pause at the right moment when the mask breaks, you can see a girls' face underneath it.**

* * *

 **Anyway, if anybody wants to attempt this, or the previous one, go ahead, just drop a review before you do that.**

 **Also, please go check out my Fate/Extra_Code on Sufficient Velocity.**


	3. Pokemon: Dark City chronicles

**AN: So… you guys remember that Pokemon Gamer SI idea that's on my Profile? (Along with a link to a totally sweet Fate/Extra Quest, which you should go to the latest chapter and vote on, just FYI)**

 **Well, after watching Suede's review of "Showdown in Dark City", I got…inspired, for the lack of a better term. See, I do take pleasure in this kind of dark, and somewhat gritty scenarios, so I figured; "Hmm, why not make a SI fic about Dark City?", and a few days later, with me writing Quicny DxD in the middle every now and then, here we are, and I hope you folks enjoy the fruits of my labour!**

* * *

' _Hmm, it seems like the Kaz and Yas morons are especially rowdy today…'_ Thought a young lad, no older than 6, as he listened to the sounds of battle raging outside, his mother lying in a fetal position as she waited for the sounds to die down, and the relative peace to return to Dark City.

Yes, _DARK CITY_ , the sole single vile of human filth within the Pokemon world, or more specifically, Kanto. And whoever came up with the name for the city must've been a prophet of some sort, as this little turf war had been going on for what must've been 15-20 years, according to the boy's father, which was a change from the canon, if the boy's memory was right.

Seriously, the boy who was once known as Edward Smith would have preferred to be born in LITERALLY any other city. Hell, even fucking Celadon or Viridian City would've been preferable, and those cities had a fucking floral fem-nazi and a mob-boss as Gym Leaders respectively.

The boy's father was a trainer of the Yas Gym -although calling either one of the groups fighting over this city " _gyms"_ was an insult, not only to body-builders, but Gym Leaders as well-, and that was to feed him and his son, whose mother had died during childbirth, as expected in a run-down city without a proper doctor or hygiene protocol.

But, despite the boy's father being a member of the Yas… _Clan_? Yes, Clan was an apt term for the two groups. Anyway, despite being a member of the Clan, the father and son still lived rather close to the middle area of the city, and by proxy, were much closer to the opposing Kaz Clan, so it wasn't all hunky-dory for the boy and his father.

So, whenever either side decided to make a move on the other's turf, his father always drove him towards the small basement that father had built with the help of his Machoke.

" _Alright Brantley, stay here until I come back, daddy's going to work."_ Brantley remembered his father's words as he patted down on his dark green busboy cap, similar to the one that Naoto Shirogane and Marie from Persona 4 had.

* * *

5 minutes after the sounds of battle disappeared, Brantley climbed up the small flight of stairs, opened the locking mechanism -a simple metal bar stuck through both handles- and pushed open the door.

"Ah, fuckbuckets…" Brantley cursed as he looked at the ruined remains of his home. Last week, it had been the neighbors, and today, it was their house's turn to get destroyed in the crossfire. Honestly, Brantley wasn't all that angry, since it was only a matter of time.

Sighing, he started moving the debris around, in an attempt to recover at least something from the shack they called home. Now, one might question how a 6-year-old kid could move heavy debris around all on his own, well, first off; it wasn't heavy, it was mostly just wood, and not even good wood. And secondly, most kids didn't have The Gamer or access to Mana that they could pump into their body to boost their physical attributes.

Sure, it didn't make him anywhere near as strong as the Machops or Mankeys the Clan handed out to fresh recruits, but it made clearing debris like this hell of a lot easier. Now, he of course kept the amount he used in public to a minimum, as to avoid being used as some kind of Human weapon by the Clan.

As Brantley shoved the debris around, he stopped as he saw a human hand beneath the rubble. But instead of panicking, Brantly merely shoved more debris away, until the… _well_ , corpse was clearly in view, as evident by the caved-in skull and chest.

But Brantley didn't focus on the corpse of the man in a blue jumpsuit -Daisuke Higashikata of the Kaz Clan, Brantley's **«Observation»** told him-, instead he focused on what were attached to the corpse's belt. Two small, spherical red-and-white devices, or more commonly known as Pokéballs, that could be used to contain, and if you weren't a complete idiot, control Pokémon, that on average, could kill someone, and in the hands of the Kaz and Yas goons, that was practically every Tuesday over here.

Calmly, Brantley walked over to the cadaver, and yanked off the man's belt, looking at the pokéballs to check if there was a Pokémon inside. Even a normal-type would of use, since they could learn a multitude of different moves.

"Tch." Sadly, the pokéballs were empty, the ones with Pokémon in them no doubt pilfered by the opposing Clans', while the Pokémon that were in these balls were killed. Oh yeah, and that's one difference from the Anime that Brantley had observed, Pokémon _died_ , especially in the violent battles that were common in this hell-hole.

The common practice in Dark City's turf war was that if you couldn't K.O the Pokémon, or force the trainer to recall them, you killed them, as to prevent them from interfering. And after a trainer was defeated, what usually happened was that you either killed them and stole their Pokémon, or, if you were pressed for time, you either stole the Pokémon and K.O'd the trainer to use them as a hostage, or you did only one of the previous options.

And now, Brantley was about to take part in yet, another Dark City's traditions; looting defeated corpses for items. See, most grunts, regardless if they were Yas or Kaz clan, carried around some healing items for their Pokémon, usually a Potion, Oran Berry or a Sitrus Berry.

Now, of course, each clan gave their grunts some specific items. Kaz clan, having roots in old ninja schools, was able to produce herbal medicine, including Heal Powder, which healed any status ailments, although, the most common ones were paralysis from a Body Slam or Thunder Punch, and confusion from Dynamite Punch. And if rumors from Father were to be believed, the Kaz clan could also make pills using Revival Herbs, which explained why there even was a stalemate going on instead of Dark City being in the control of the Yas clan.

The Yas clan, being a bit more battle-oriented, didn't have all that much in terms of medicine, but they were able to give their Pokémon battle-related items, like Muscle Bands and rather surprisingly, Shell Bells and Macho Braces. Apparently, the founder of the Yas clan had been a member of the Karate Dojo, and when the Dojo lost the official spot as Saffron city gym, one of them came here and started up the Yas gym, bearing not only guides on how to make these items, but also some notes on some experimental gear.

 **«Loot acquired»  
** **(x1) Heal Powder bottle {13/15]  
(x1) Energy Powder bottle {11/15]  
24 Pokédollars**

 **«Loot stored to [Inventory]»**

"Ah, geez, this family just can't catch a break, can it?" Brantley turned towards the sound of the voice, a Yas clan member who was clutching his left arm, a bloodied cloth tied around it. And around him were 5 other Yas clan members, each one of them having taken varying degrees of damage, both in terms of HP and physical wounds.

As the man's compatriots noticed Brantley staring at them, one of them elbowed the one who had spoken, before motioning to Brantley. Flinching, the first man, Sasaki Hirose, flinched, no doubt a sign of guilt. Of what, Brantley found out with a quick mutter of «Observation», watching Sasaki like a hawk.

"So then, father is dead." Brantley stated, looking at the man, who was unnerved by the boy's blank expression. Brantley's father, Lee, had been killed by one of the Kaz trainers, and his Machoke had been stolen, the rest of his Pokémon and items had been recovered by other Yas trainers, which would then be returned to the gym and re-distributed to other trainers.

Sasaki scratched the back of his head, turning his head to avoid meeting Brantley's eyes. "Yeah…sorry about that…" the man awkwardly replied. Even from birth, Lee's and Hannah's kid had been weird, constantly looking at everything around him, but not with any sense of wonder, but more like some of the older members, ones who had seen some serious shit, like a man getting cut in half by a Kingler-type of shit.

And hell, even now, when Lee got killed by those Kaz Gym bastards, the kid in front of him didn't even flinch, or start crying like a normal kid would, or anything. He just shrugged, and said: "Well, that sucks.", with a small frown on his face, like the death of his parent was nothing more than an inconvenience, an _annoyance_ , rather than the tragic thing that it was and _should_ be to a child his age.

Heck, that's what had happened with the last six kids they had to break the news to, and then dispatch a part of their squad to escort them back to the Gym to start their training.

"So, when does the training start?" and as if his mind was an open book, Lee's kid asked, those same blank eyes peeking out from the shadow casted by the cap. Geez, sometimes Sasaki wondered whether or not the kid was possessed by a Ghost Pokémon or something.

* * *

 **[2 Months later…]**

A new orange scarf around his arm, Brantley stood in line with eight other kids, most of them rather unremarkable, although the blue-haired girl, Cindy tickled a small part of his mind for a while, but not in a _"this is someone dangerous, eliminate them"_ way, more like _"I remember her from somewhere"_ way. And all of the kids had something orange on them, as to denote them as a part of Yas clan, but unlike the rest of the kids there, Brantley had picked up something that he could hide or dispose rather easily.

"LISTEN UP, YOUNG WARRIORS OF YAS!" Their instructor, a mountain of a man named Igor Degurechaff roared as he entered the room, stomping down on the tatami mat as the recruits snapped to attention.

"Today is a very important for you young lads and lasses. For today is the day when you will be granted a Pokémon of your very own, and you officially become a part of the glorious Yas Gym." At this point, Igor motioned to the eight pokéballs that were laid out on a table at the end of the room. With my **«Observation»** , I could see the Pokémon in each and every one of them, and I had already found the one I wanted.

The one on the far left, containing a Level 5 male Machop with an Adamant Nature, Guts ability and the Egg move; Thunder Punch.

With a quick glance to the left, I could see that my _"fellow Trainers"_ were excited by Igor's words.

"Now then, Cindy, c'mon up here to pick your Pokémon." The blue-haired girl, who was related to one of the higher-up members of the gym, did so, and with a lazy salute, picked up the Pokéball on the far right, containing a Level 5 female Mankey, Jolly Nature, Anger Point ability, no abnormal egg moves, possessing only Scratch, Leer, Low Kick and Fury Swipes.

"Alright then. Uh… Cole, get yer keester up here." Igor motioned to Brantley, to which he responded with a proper salute as walked forward. His eyes zeroed in on the ball with the Thunder Machop in it as he walked over to it, picked it up, and clipped it to the belt he had pilfered from the Yas member all those months ago.

 **«[Machop] Obtained and added to [Party]!»**

Brantley returned to the line, and then simply waited for the others to take up their Pokémon, 3 Mankeys and 3 Machops, each with varying natures, abilities and egg moves.

"Kuwabara." A kid with a Corncob-style pompadour picked up a pokéball containing a Level 5 male Mankey, Bold Nature, Vital Spirit, Moves: Scratch, Leer, Low Kick and Fury Swipes. Mom tried defecting to cure the youngest child. Good-hearted plan, sloppy execution, both the plan _and_ her own. Little brother died due to god-damn diarrhea of all things.

"Ann." Pokemon: A Level 5 female Mankey, Modest Nature, Anger Point, Moves: Covet, Focus Energy, Low Kick and Fury Swipes. Uncle beat her on bad days, just to let out some steam, and two months ago, when said uncle got a bit too deep in the bottle, he got the _ingenious_ idea to go out there and tell the Pokémon users to, and I quote: _"SHUT YER PISS-DRINKING, BUCK-TOOTHED, MAGGOT-INFESTED YAPS UP, 'FORE I COME AND DO IT MESELF!"_

Truly, the sound of his generation. However, the Kaz trainers had a rather compelling retort: _"Golem, use Rollout."_. The splat was rather loud, could be heard down a couple of blocks.

"Fergus" Level 5 female Machop, Brave Nature, No Guard, Moves: Seismic Toss, Focus Energy, Low Kick and Leer. Older brother and parents got zapped by Electabuzz into KFF. Kentucky Fried Family.

"Josuke." Got a Level 5 male Machop, Rash Nature, No Guard, Moves: Low Kick, Foresight, Focus Energy and Leer. Aunt got chopped up by a Kingler, parents got trampled by a couple of Rhyhorns a few years ago.

"Jerry." Picked up a Level 5 male Mankey, Serious Nature, Anger Point, Moves: Fury Swipes, Leer, Low Kick and Covet. His family got eaten by a pack of Rattata, who were under some developmental drug made by the Kaz, meant to be all the Stat-boosting X Drugs, plus Dire Hit all in one simple pill. Apparently, it did a shit-job, as the rat Pokémon went feral and after eating the family started eating each other.

"Katie." A Level 5 male Machop, Timid Nature, Guts, Moves: Low Kick, Seismic Toss, Leer and Foresight. Normal childhood without any dark family secrets, well, aside from both parents dying from a building getting hit by a rookie's Rhyhorn charging forward even after the opposing Pokémon dodged.

With all the Pokémon distributed, Igor turned to face the line of new recruits. "Alright, now it's time fer ye young'uns to properly meet yer partners, for what we all hope to be fer the rest of yer lives." Igor stepped back, both as a symbol of the recruits being on their own, and to keep a safe distance in case someone got the bright idea of throwing their pokéball.

The newly-minted Yas clan trainers, aside from Brantley, were more than excited to see their Pokémon, Kuwabara, Ann and Katie throwing their pokéballs, triggering, the motion release mechanism, shooting out their Pokémon in a flash of blue light, before the balls rebounded back towards them, while the rest of the trainers merely held out their Pokéballs and pressed a button on the top of the balls, triggering the opening mechanism, a spark of blue energy flying out from all of them, landing a couple of feet in front of them.

"Alright, I got a Mankey!" Kuwabara grinned as he strutted over to his Mankey, who matched his strut with the same amount of cockiness. Brantley couldn't help but think that they fit together like two halves of a brain. A sentiment that was apparently shared by another member of their little motley crew.

"Heh, it's almost like looking at a mirror isn't it?" Ann asked jokingly as her Mankey merely sniffed at her. Oh great, the prick-mode is on, lovely…

Fergus timidly looked at his Machop, who was brimming with confidence. That partnership wouldn't probably last long, no doubt ending in one of two, possibly three ways. Either Fergus would die, or his Machop would get stolen, or Fergus would merely go to the R&D part of the clan.

Josuke offered his Machop a handshake, only to regret it soon after, as the Machop shook his hand with great vigor, forcing Josuke to struggle trying to keep his feet planted, and his hand intact. They'd be good for a couple of yucks at least.

Jerry and his Mankey merely looked each other over, before nodding, the Mankey climbing onto his back, where it simply hung, occasionally glancing at the other Pokémon and their trainers. Well, at least one professional partnership was formed today.

Katie however, was giving her Machop a great big hug, the Machop trying to slip out of her bear hug, only for Katie to tighten her hold. Huh, pretty sure that she shouldn't be able to lift the Machop that easily. Then again, maybe that was due to the trickle of Aura that was constantly running through her body.

"D'aww, well aren't you a cutie, C'mere to mama." Cindy said, picking up her Mankey in a hug, the Mankey preening at the attention that was given to it/her.

Brantley however, merely raised an eyebrow inquisitively when he saw how his Machop was acting. Unlike the Machops that Katie, Josuke and Fergus got, his was…less…well, he couldn't quite put a definite word on it, but the way the Machop was standing there and looking around seemed, well, artificial was a good way of putting it, each movement of the muscle seemed to move only the required amount, and no less.

And then there were the eyes. Oh sure, they weren't the same kind of lightless spots that Brantley's were, but the light in those red eyes seemed… dimmer than those of the others. Now, it wasn't overly noticeable, but if you looked for it, you'd see it.

 **«Gamer-Pokémon interface 100%. Loyalty established»**

Brantley raised his other brow at the message that flashed in front of him for a while, before disappearing. So, his Gamer System ensured that any Pokémon he obtained would obey him, possibly by suppressing individuality or emotions, he wasn't quite sure which one it was. Although, he was definitely intrigued by the possibilities. Did it mean that even Pokémon he stole would be also be affected by his system?

Something to look forward to when his plan of ending this idiocy -which had been going on for longer than he had been alive in this world- reached Stage 2.

* * *

 **AN: …SO yeah, I altered the Pokémon world a little, and at the same time, tried to explain how the Kaz Gym, which mind you, mostly had Normal- and Rock-type Pokémon, managed to NOT get utterly wrecked by the Yas gym, which was full of Fighting-Types, aside from Scyther.**

 **And yes, I also lengthened the time the conflict has been going on, and also gave both sides a bit of back-story. Now, this chapter was more or less an abridged version, with me skipping straight from Brantley, which means "Coming from a land cleared by fire", catching the old "dead parents syndrome" to him getting his Machop.**

 **And as for what I had planned for this, well, let me put it this way, he was going to be catching a Venonat that knew Poison Powder, and later on Toxic, and he was going to be well-known for his kick-ass tea among the Yas clan, so yeah…**

 **Anyway, some of you might be wondering why I didn't include any kind of Status screen, which I seem to always throw into chapters whenever I can. Well, that's because I'm not sure how to handle stat screens in a Pokémon Gamer story.**

 **Question of the chapter, yes, I'm doing those on here too, in fact, I'll be asking THREE questions, since I didn't ask anything on the previous two posts:**

* * *

 **Q1:** What kind of story ideas you guys and gals **(and that technicolor rainbow in-between and around it)** would like to see me tackle here? C'mon, there are no bad ideas, only poorly explained ones.

* * *

 **Q2:** In my first Misc. Chapter, **«A Game of Seekers and Wizards»** , which year of Harry Potter would you guys like it to be connected to? The latest year I'm willing to use is the fourth one, since A: that's the Movie I remember the most about, and have some ideas for, and the earliest year would be either the events of Movie 1, or preferably, 2.

* * *

 **Q3:** How do I handle Titans and Pokémon in the Gamer's System? Do I give Titans static levels, or do I make them able to Level up, like the Pokémon and the Human characters? And do I replace the [Party System] that I've been using in my previous stories (The Gamer is spread to other characters temporarily) with them (The Titans and Pokémon don't get the perks from The Gamer, but they do gain the same EXP that each member gets)?

I'm asking this, since… well, not going to lie, after reading **Root of Darkness** and **Sword and Sorcery** , I have kinda gotten my appetite for Harry Potter stuff back, and, well, I have come up with a few interesting ideas for that thing, although I am still lacking an endgame for the story.

* * *

 **And as for what I possibly have planned for the next One-Shot chapter, well, I'm going to ask you a question…**

 **Ever heard of a little Naruto Shippuden game called…** _ **"Kizuna Drive"**_ **?...**


	4. Enduring Soul: Lightning Strikes Twice

**AN: So, I'm just here to drop a little something-something I've been dabbling with, since people were so sad when my previous attempt got cancelled.**

 **Enduring Soul: Lightning Strikes Twice**

* * *

 _'Oh for FUCK'S SAKE! I'm a baby, AGAIN!'_ Thought a toddler, previously known as Wang Shen, as he laid in a small crib, in the middle of a forest, left by whom he figured to be this body's birth mother, considering how she was constantly apologizing for _"having to leave her baby boy in other hands"_ all the way here. Now, if she had left him at a proper orphanage, or hell, even at the doorsteps of a church or temple, he'd be perfectly fine with that shit.

But it seems like that bitch was intent on winning the Deadbeat mom of the year award, for she left the newly re- _RE_ -incarnated Shen in the middle of a freaking Spirit Beast Forest.

' _Seriously, what the fuck!'_ At least he still had his Mental Stats, his Level, and his Skills, although said skills _had_ dropped down to half of what they were before his death, with his physical skills, like staff proficiency completely gone, while his other Skills had gotten their Skill Levels cut in half.

And thankfully, his «Inventory» still had the things he had stolen and made in the past life.

Oh, and speaking of his death, well, he was barbequed by his dear old grandfather, Wang Huojin, Level 56 Attack System Spirit King with the Tool Spirit: Demon Fire Lantern, and ooh boy, Shen could attest to how hot those fires were.

See, this little roasting took place a few years, maybe less after their first meeting, when Shen had finally reached Level 10 after fighting a few Zombies in his Illusion Barrier, which he entered during night-time. And well, his parents were busy, so dear old grandfather had volunteered to take him into the forest to get him his first Spirit Ring.

Now, Shen probably should have noticed that something was wrong with Huojin offering to help him when he constantly kept shooting venomous glares at the Water-attributed members of their family.

See, as it turns out, Huojin _despised_ Hai, as he felt that his daughter should have married and procreated with a Fire-Attributed Spirit Master, and while he might have tolerated Hai and Jiang, Hai because he managed to beat a Lightning-attributed Assault System Spirit Ancestor, and Jiang because he shared half his DNA with Huojin's precious daughter.

SO yeah, as you might imagine, the guy obsessed with keeping the family blood purely Fire-Attributed wasn't all that giddy when he heard that his third grandchild had a Death-Attribute Tool Spirit.

And when combined with the fact that the old man constantly seemed at least somewhat aware of Shen's _"uniqueness"_ , it really shouldn't have been that big of a surprise when the man shot fire at him once they got deep enough into the forest.

The Attack System Spirit King had called him a bastard son, claimed that Hai had let someone sully his daughter, and that he was going to find the person who did so, after he had wiped him from the face of the earth.

He didn't hit with his first attack, as Shen had swung himself to the trees with a quick Mana Rope, and from there, it turned into a game of Cat and Mouse. However, a good 10-15 minutes in, the old pyromaniac's shot had hit him straight in the head, and then he had woken up…wherever the hell his bitch of a new birth-mother had traveled from.

Shen was snapped out of his reminiscing by the sound of the grass shuffling. He called up his Mana, ready to retaliate or escape from whatever Spirit Beast tried making him their next lunch. Sure, he was still in a baby's body, but he was slowly finishing weaving his Mana throughout his body, meant to move this body around like a possessed marionette.

Hell, he was reaching into his «Inventory» to draw out the few daggers, swords, spears, hell, any pointy object he had, ready to Gate of Babylon any beast that came at him. Sure, he knew that it wouldn't do anything to a real strong Spirit Beast, but at least it'd slow it down, possibly take out an eye.

"Hmm, what's this? A crib?" However, before he could do anything, he heard a distinctly human voice, a woman's to be precise. However, Shen still didn't utter a word, since he knew that Spirit Beasts that grew to be old enough could speak the human language, so he still kept his rendition of the Gate of Babylon open and ready to open fire.

Narrowing his eyes, he waited for the new arrival to reveal herself, and if he heard the footsteps correctly, her entourage of 5 humanoids. He wasn't sure if there were any human-shaped Spirit Beasts, but he'd rather look before he leapt.

"Principal, where's the intruder?" one of said entourage, a man with a gruff voice asked.

"Gone, fan out and look for her, I'll see what this is about." The woman, seemingly in charge said, walking forward as her entourage leapt away with a shout of "Yes Ma'am!" and the rustle of grass.

As Shen felt himself be picked up, he was greeted with a face he did recognize. A woman with red hair, blue eyes and a small amount of purple make-up on her face.

 **«Power Attack System»  
Liu Erlong LV ?  
EXP: ?/?**

 **HP: ?  
MP: ?  
SP: ?**

 **«Player's Level is too low to see further information»**

' _Well, that's about what I expected'_ Shen thought as he looked Erlong straight in the face, contemplating how he should do things this time around. Sure, he could do things like he did back with the Wang family, but he had the feeling that said course of action would end poorly. Right here he had a far more solid in to enter the Shrek Academy than he did as a Wang, and he was not about to let go of that in.

But regardless, right now he had to somehow convince Erlong to keep him around. _'Baby charms, don't fail me now'_

Mustering up what little muscle control he had acquired, he moved his lips and vocal cords to pronounce a gurgle of sounds that resulted in "Mama?" coming out of his mouth, while he reached out to her, relinquishing the control he had gained over his fingers to maintain the image of a small, innocent, not to mention _defenseless_ baby, that you should totally adopt, and not throw at the nearest orphanage.

Throwing in a small puppy-frown, and then bringing up the few tear-jerking emotions he had, mostly of Anime deaths from Iron-Blooded Orphans, Shen hoped that whatever maternal instincts he knew to be in Erlong would be triggered by his interpretative imitation of a baby seal.

Granted, a Spirit user would probably club a baby seal if it meant obtaining a Spirit Ring. Hell, he'd club a _thousand_ baby seals, and then make a meat toboggan from their numerous corpses to sled through to the snow, if it meant he'd be safe for the rest of his life in this world. And even as the eyes of the horrified children asked _"Why?"_ , he wouldn't stop, no, he'd pick up the baby seal and slam it against another baby seal.

However, his plan was…only _partially_ successful, as Erlong started rocking him back and forth wildly, trying to get him to not cry. Oh right, she hasn't been a mother-hen to something that registered to her as a small child, she had been mother to Xiao, who was as wild, if not wilder than Erlong.

' _Fuck, stop that, or I'm going to hurl!'_ Shen thought, keeping his mouth shut, not only to keep whatever food was in his belly to not come out, but to make it seem like the shaking Erlong gave him worked.

* * *

 **AN: That's all for now, folks, hope you enjoyed this.**

 **And yes, the MC of this fic is Wang Shen from my Douluo Dalu: Enduring Soul, and as for how he reincarnated in his new body? Well, his Tool Spirit kinda made him into a lich, or a wraith, so yeah, he's literally possessing the new body.**

 **And as for what that Body's Spirit will be, well, I have talked about it before, so I don't see the harm in saying it here and now.**

 **It's a Rok/Rukh/Thunder Bird/whatever adjective works, Agility Attack system Beast Spirit, with a major Lightning affinity, and a minor Wind one.**

 **Haven't really come up with any Spirit Ring stuff for it, which is why this is so short.**

* * *

 **Question of the Chapter:**

What kind of story you guys would like me to make a one-shot of next? And just saying, if certain things happen, it might end up as a full-blown story. And don't be afraid to suggest non-anime things, as long as it's not a book, or a Comic, since I can't research those as thoroughly as an Anime, Manga, Web comic, or a Video game, just saying.


	5. a Pirate's life for me in Tristain!

' _Ah, God, Jesus, Satan, Buddha, Odin, Kamina, Zelretch, anybody willing to GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!?'_ A two-meter-tall young man with brown hair thought in panic as he noticed he couldn't move to get away from the small girl walking towards himself, not that it was the weirdest thing to happen to him today. No, that'd definitely go to the green portal that had sucked him in, and then placed him here, in this courtyard full of children, who all seemed to be speaking French.

And one of said shitkids, a pink-haired little loli he recognized as the main bitch from Familiar of Zero, and obviously, _he_ was summoned here, along with Saito apparently to be her familiar. Now, the Japanese lad might be happy to be some punk-ass dog, but not him, he didn't want to be enslaved, he didn't want to be here, in this back-water world where people with magic could do whatever they wanted to the people without magic, not to mention that this whole continent was doomed to be launched into the skies above, only to drop down in due time.

" _ **What are ye whimpering for?"**_

Edward froze as he heard a voice ringing in his head. _His_ voice, but somewhat different, like the voice of another's was laid on top of it. He felt a throbbing pain from within his head, agonizing, burning pain, like someone had pushed heated drills into his head, and they were colliding and grinding up against one another.

 _ **"If ye do nothing, we'll be just like these creatures, enslaved to the wills of these "nobles", forced to dance to their tune, lest we get the whip."**_

The voice commented, as Edward's eyes moved to look at the magical menagerie mingling with the students. While he may not know how these creatures acted in the wild, he could see that they were acting like domesticated pets, the light in their eyes a more subdued hue.

 _ **"Are ye simply going to let yerself be chained up like a lil' pup? Roll over, and let the wee lass ERASE! OUR! MEMORIES?!"**_

The voice roared, the last words emphasized by the intensity of the pain doubling each time, and were it not for his paralysis, he'd be on the ground, writhing in pain.

' _Like HELL I am!'_ Edward responded to the voice, eyes shaking as they took on a yellow tint. He knew that if he got a familiar rune on him, then BLAMMO! He could kiss his free thought process and be nothing more than a fucking Sub-lap dog for a small, trigger-happy, insecure little _BITCH_ who took her anger out on those who couldn't fight back.

 _ **"Aye, there's a good lad, now take a vow."**_

The voice complimented, a ting of pride evident in his tone. And once more the pain became stronger, Edward's fingers twitching as the pink-haired girl finally finished her argument with the bald man, now walking towards Edward and the other boy.

" _ **I art thou, thou art I… Ye who be willing to commit all rebellious and punishable acts, even if it were to cost Ye your head, take up my flag and toast to the Devil!"**_

As the voice chanted, a mask formed onto Edward's face. The mask bore a slight resemblance to that of a human skull, were it not for the two horns adorning its crown, the sharpened teeth, the slanted eyeholes and the pale green X emblazed across it.

Edward took no hesitation as he grabbed onto the mask, and ripped it off of his face, blood spurting and flowing down his face, a near-insane laughter bellowing from his vocal chords as his face twisted to a savage grin.

' _W-What in the world?!'_ Louise gasped, flinching back at the sight of blood, or to be more precise, the sudden spurt, and amount of blood.

" _ **Good, good, now let us do as per our nature, and hoist the anchors of complacency and oppression, and set sail for the high seas of freedom!"**_

The voice inside his head roared with glee, the blood on Edward's fading away as black and red fire took its place, spreading down to the rest of his body.

His black and grey jacket were replaced by a black trench coat with green highlights, while his white T-shirt was replaced by a black vest with a dark grey undershirt and a green tie. And as the black and red flames faded away from his lower body, his blue jeans became replaced by dark blue military pants, while his black and white sneakers were now brown military boots.

And just to finish off the transformation, a black officer hat formed on his head, with a forest green band around it, and a grinning devil's skull emblazoned on the front of it.

However, the fire that had previously covered him kept moving upwards, growing in size as it took a more distinct shape, the flames fading away as well, revealing the man within. The first noticeable thing was the big, black beard, and the grin that it surrounded, the rest of the head covered by a large tricorne sprouting a red feather upon it.

The figure's torso was clothed with a fine, black and red waistcoat, buttoned up to cover the torso, a yellow sash separating the waistcoat from the white breeches that puffed out as they met the black boots of this fearsome figures.

The bony hands of the spectral pirate were crossed in a confident manner, nowhere near the cutlass that hung from the pirate's hip, but the reason for such confidence was revealed soon enough as the flames spread out to 40 separate balls, no taller nor wider than a meter, which then revealed to be humanoid skulls, marked as non-human by the two horns that adorned the crown of the skulls.

* * *

"Louise, get away from there!" Colbert ordered, finally out of his stupor, launching a blast of fire from his staff, aimed at the figure that was floating in the air.

' _ **«Eiha»**_ _!'_ Two of the skulls floating next to Blackbeard lit up, their jaws opening, allowing a cannon to pop out of each one, which then fired, two black and red balls of energy colliding with the blast of fire in a glorious explosion.

Crouching down, Blackbeard lowered its left hand towards Edward, who walked into the hand of the Persona without hesitation, unaware that the ground he stepped on splashed and rippled like water, allowing himself be lifted to the shoulder of the Persona.

"Alright, let's bust out of here Blackbeard. OPEN FIRE!" Edward shouted, his Persona laughing as half of the skull cannons pointed towards one of the walls of the academy, before opening fire, the small barrage of cannonballs breaking down one of the walls.

"Students, run back to your dorms, and alert any teachers you may run into." Colbert said, gripping his staff tightly as he looked at the devastation that being has caused. Even one staff of destruction was dangerous, but a being that could control forty of those weapons? He couldn't allow such a thing to escape out into the public.

However, one Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière refused to walk away from the chaos that her uppity, disobedient monster of a Familiar was causing. "Mr. Colbert, this is _**my**_ Familiar, allow me to help in disciplining this unrul-" However, she was cut off by Colbert.

"Ms. Vallière, while your bravery is commendable, there is a difference between subduing a mere magical creature, and fighting against a devil such as this, and you are not in any way capable of doing so." Colbert wasn't about to let the small second year student fight against a being that was clearly hostile, and wielding numerous magical relics of high destructive power.

"What I suggest you do is contract the other young man you summoned," Colbert pointed at Saito, who was currently unconscious, laying on the ground with foam coming from the mouth.

"preferably before he replicates the feat." Louise begrudgingly nodded, moving to contract the Japanese boy, all too aware of the stares of her classmates. They would no doubt think twice about angering her, and calling her "Lousie the Zero", for if she was capable of summoning such a terrifying monster, when all they had summoned were mere magical beasts, then was she truly as hopeless as initially thought?

As Louise walked away, Colbert began chanting for a Triangle-class spell, not wanting to cause more damage to the school, or inadvertently blow away the debris that was currently keeping young Ms. Vallière's other familiar contained in the academy.

And to be honest, the researcher part of him was rather intrigued by how the boy had managed to summon that being, considering that he himself was apparently a familiar, along with the other boy. Oh, and speaking of which, he wondered and hoped that by establishing the contract with one of them, the other one would also be pulled under.

However, his researcher's soul would have to take a back seat for now.

* * *

Edward faintly heard the bald man chanting, followed by the smell of burning oxygen, and so, Blackbeard turned around, retorting to the attack with 30-cannon salute, a third of the attack breaking through the blast of fire, heading towards Colbert, who was knocked against a wall by the resulting explosion.

Edward momentarily contemplated finishing off the flame wizard, but then decided against it.

He wasn't here to kill anyone, just escape. Hell, he hadn't asked to be here, he didn't _**want**_ to be here. He'd just need to wait for that weird eclipse to happen, and then fly to it, which Blackbeard should be able to do. He had to hehadtohehadtohehadtohehadtoHEHADTOHEHADTOHEH **ADTOHEHADTOHEHADTO** _ **HE ABOSLUTELY HAD TO!**_

Responding to his panic, Blackbeard blasted away the rubble in their way before taking off, ten of the cannon-skulls moving behind them, jets of fire streaming from each of them, accelerating them to such speeds that a cone of air formed around them as they flew across the sky, uncaring of whether someone from below saw them.

However, as they got a couple of kilometers away from the academy, a throbbing pain exploded all over Edward's body, as both his clothes and Blackbeard flickered and glitched, like footage of a bad reception. The flames on Blackbeard's skull cannons also fizzled out, their trajectory doing a nosedive as they dropped into the ground, and the Persona curled around its user in an attempt to protect its other self from the fall damage.

Even as Edward clutched his head in pain, and spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed his throat out, although nobody was around to hear it, the flickering of his clothes and Persona lessening in frequency, but increased in intensity.

However, the Persona managed to keep itself materialized long enough to save its user, as Edward screamed, cried and writhing and gripping his head in pain. And this pain, it wasn't like the pain he felt like when he first summoned Blackbeard, it was like someone took blazing hot hooks, and attached one to every single part of his nervous system and started pulling in different directions, but it was like no part of him would get ripped off, extending the duration and the intensity of the pain as it went on and on and onandonandon **andonandonAndOnANdoN….**

* * *

 **So yeah, not going to lie, I was pretty lazy about doing this, well, aside from the Persona part of it, for which I drew BB-Edward in his Phantom Thief clothing, the mugshot of said drawing now being used as my profile pic.**

 **And yeah, I do not have any desire to make this into a full fic, and fi anybody wants to adopt it, drop a review, and I'll share the small notes that I had for this storyline.**

 **Oh, and about the next One-Shots, well, those ones I'm willing to turn into an actual story, and I'll be posting them together. They're essentially the same basic concept, it's just that Iäll be having you folks, my readers to vote for which one I'll pursue in earnest.**


	6. Naruto SI, and a Douluo Dalu question

_'Why, why did father die?!'_ were the thoughts of one Amagiri Taisa as he tried wiping away the tears that flowed down his face, not that one would be able to tell them apart from the rain that was falling from the skies, as if the heavens themselves were weeping over the loss of the Amagiri Clan's leader.

Even though this was to be a time mourning and sadness for the Clan, hatred and suspicion were evident upon the faces of the older members of the Clan. As if it wasn't enough for those Tenro mutts to take over their village, forcing them to flee to their Clan's sacred forest, but now they took Gensui-sama away from them? Damn what the Medic-Nin had said about a natural heart attack, there were more than enough ways to cause a _"natural"_ heart attack.

Hell, their Clan were among the first to use them in assassinations, but Gensui-sama's body was clean of the toxins they used, not to mention that he was the one who had lead their clan out of the dark times into this peaceful era, and well-loved and respected among the family, so it couldn't have been one of their own, which only left the Tenro, the Hirasaka, who were the Tenro's servants in all but name, or a third party seeking to cause discord among their village.

But, for now they'd have to tighten their defenses, and up the training of Gensui-Sama's elder son.

Said elder son, no older than eight, laid a comforting hand on his little brother's shoulder as he wept for their late father. "Nii-san, w-why did otou-san-" Little Taisa couldn't finish his sentence as he cried at the painful memory, burying his face into his older brother's shoulder, the tears sinking into the black and purple cloth that composed their funeral outfits.

Taisa's older brother froze in mild surprise when his brother started bawling his eyes out, but after a while, his features relaxed as he patted his brother soothingly. "Don't cry, Taisa, father nor mother would like to see you sad." He said, with complete calmness, stroking his brother's head soothingly, even as he watched the coffin of his father lowered into the hole that was dug for it, at the center of their sacred forest, where others of their clan were buried, Gensui's grave laying right next to his wife's, and to the left of his parents' graves.

And after each person present had paid their respects, the grave was closed, and the clan members started walking away. While they would have liked to grieve for their late leader more, they had more important things to worry about, like deciding who would lead the clan from now on, as Gensui-sama's children were still too young for the responsibility, although young Koji had seemed to have the right composure, but he was too inexperienced to lead the Clan to survive in the village.

As the clansmen walked away from the graves of their clansmen, with their heads down, Koji's face twitched for a second, revealing a small inkling of a smile on his lips, before it was replaced by the saddened and glum expression that was present on the rest of the Amagiri clan.

* * *

 **[Amagiri Clan compound, meeting room…]**

"I assume this meeting is about selecting someone to lead the Clan until I reach the correct age." Koji stated, the purpose of this meeting rather clear to him. After all, if their Clan chose a mere child who wasn't even a Genin yet as their leader, then what did that speak of the abilities of their older members?

And so, that was why he was sitting in the same room as 5 other Amagiri members, each one of them a Jonin, or Tokubetsu Jonin, and if he was being perfectly honest, all fo these people looking at him with expectations was making him a bit nervous

Amagiri Kenzou, a distant relative of Gensui's who held the rank of Jonin in their village, nodded before he began his explanation. "Indeed, that is a part of the reason we are holding this meeting."

Koji sighed, already predicting what the _other_ reason these geezers had called for this meeting. "We will not be going after the Tenro for father's death." He'd rather not be responsible for causing a civil war, not when he had no proper place of refuge.

And to be honest, he was rather lucky that his plan had worked out, considering how it took a better part of the year to pull off. At least now the events of Kizuna Drive wouldn't come into fruition. Koji had shivered in fear at the thought of a vengeful old man like Gensui being in command of multiple Biju, even if they were mere replicas.

"Hmph, and why should we listen to a boy who isn't even fit to lead the clan? Why shouldn't we go after those Tenro mutts, who took away lord Gensui, unsatisfied with taking just our village?" Gensui's younger cousin, Kazuya, a Tokubetsu Jonin with his black hair pulled into a small pony-tail and a stern look on his face cockily asked. He was one of the clan members who shared the same strong feelings about the Tenro clan.

Koji smirked at his older cousin's question. He had of course expected someone like him to object to the idea of making peace with the Tenro, and possibly fully integrating themselves back into the village that was stolen from their clan all those years ago.

Well, stolen was an incorrect term for what had happened. See, after the Biju were distributed by Hashirama, Yumegakure, still ruled by the Amagiri had decided to obtain one of their own. And so, they had tracked down a number of Chakra beasts that had originated from the depths of the Oni no Kuni, which was rather well known for its bizarre fauna and flora, something that Koji theorized was due to an intense amount of Biju Chakra mixing with the Nature chakra in the country.

But, as was the case whenever mankind attempted playing god, when they did manage to seal the beasts, something went wrong, and the beasts combined, forming a beast of calamity they named Jigoku no Okuri-Inu, or as Koji had previously known it, the Three-Heads.

However, the team in charge of capturing the beasts had only noticed the fusion had happened only after they had returned to Yumegakure, and attempted to summon the beasts to show off the spoils of their hunt, expecting the beasts to be perfectly in control.

To say the least, they were wrong, _very_ , _**VERY**_ wrong.

The beast raged around the village quite a lot, until it was finally sealed and subdued by the Tenro patriarch of that time, but the beast had still razed half the village to nothing but dust before it was sealed away.

And so, the people had looked for someone, anyone to blame, eventually selecting the Amagiri to be the ones to bear the blame, not that said blame was _completely_ undeserved.

"Well then Kazuya-san, how exactly would you go about _"making the Tenro pay"_? I'm dying with anticipation to hear your plan" Koji replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "And of course, this is assuming that they _are_ the culprit, even though there is no evidence of them being involved." He added.

Kazuya huffed. "Simple, we poison their ruling family, just like how they took Gensui-Sama away from us." Eye for an eye, as it were. "And as for evidence, what other party would benefit from Gensui-sama's death?"

"And? You do realize that we Amagiri are well known for our poisons, and that doing so would result in a swift retribution from the remainder of their clan?" Kenzou questioned. Kazuya's heart was in the right place, but he was not only too rash, and admittedly, a bit too confident in the power of their own clan.

The three other Amagiri clan council members sat silently, watching how this debate would turn out before picking their sides.

Young Kobi was correct in that this wasn't the right time to be making pointless accusations and rash actions. This should be a time where they built up their strength and defenses, as to prevent more of their kin from dying.

However, Kazuya was also correct in that they couldn't simply let the death of Gensui go, both from pride, and to prevent the village from seeing them as weak, and thus, a liability to get rid of. But just as Kenzou said, their clan was well known for their potent poison, so it wouldn't take long for the Tenro and Hirasaka to figure out that it was them who were behind the poisoning.

"Not to mention that the alliance with Konoha would stack the odds even more against us." Kobi pointed out. The treaty would make it so that the Konoha Shinobi would come to help the recognized ruling party of the village, or to put it bluntly, the Tenro's.

"And about your other point Kazuya-san." A small, sinister and all-knowing smirk made its way onto his lips. "There are plenty who would benefit from father's demise, including people who you wouldn't think would harm Father." Himself included, but really, who would expect a mere child to be able to kill a Jonin-level fighter like Gensui, who was a master of Fuinjutsu and their Clan's transformation technique, along with a near-perfect mastery of his Chakra levitation technique?

Kenzou and the other members raised an eyebrow at Kobi's claim. While certainly, power struggles within clans wasn't anything surprising, but those were done as power grabs by heirs who were of age, siblings, or ambitious cousins…

Realizing the implications, Kazuya rose up, anger on his face, parts of his body taking on a shinier appearance as part of his skin darkened, looking like an insect's exoskeleton. "How _DARE_ you accuse _**ME**_ of killing Gensui-sama?! He was like a brother to me!" he roared in anger, his body slowly taking on more and more beetle-like attributes.

As it started to look like a fight would break out, Kenzou flared his chakra and roared. "KAZUYA! Don't forget your place!" He had just lost a man who was a brother to him in all but parentage, and he'd rather not lose someone he considered a son and a bright hope for their family simply because an over-emotional Chunin let vague, if not logical accusations get to him.

The partially transformed Amagiri member blinked before looking down at his arms, now covered in black armor, and feeling a carapace forming on his back. Dismissing the transformation, he coughed "Apologies Kenzou-sama, everyone, I lost my temper." He bowed, hiding an embarrassed blush as he sat back down.

"No need to apologize Kazuya-san, I should have been clearer with what I said." Kobi said, an apologetic smile on his face, but on the inside he was smirking like the cat that ate the canary.

A funny thing he about the Amagiri clan's **«Hiden: Konchu-ningen no jutsu»** , which means _"insect-human"_ , although all clan members he had seen transformed into a beetle, kinda like how all Tenro turned into werewolf-like beings, but alas, he was getting sidetracked. The funny thing about the technique was that if an in-experienced user lost control of their emotions, parts of their body would start taking on a kabutomushi-like appaearance, although the body parts varied between each member.

"Well, like Kazuya-san assumed, a member of our Clan is one possible suspect, whether to gain more power, or to lead the clan to attempt a coup on the Tenro." Kobi began his explanation.

"Then there's the possibility that this was done by someone within the village who wants us to die attempting a coup." Then move onto the idea that they'd be more willing to believe.

"However, I don't think that either one of those profiles is correct." And finally, present them with _"your truth"_.

Kenzou raised an eyebrow at Kobi's final statement, stroking his beard in thought, sharing a look with the other adults in the room. Getting slight nods and shrugs that were the verbal equivalent of _"We might as well hear the boy out, it's not like we have anything to lose"_ , Kenzou motioned Kobi to continue.

"See, one night, after I had put Taisa to bed, I heard Father arguing in the other room." Kobi began his _"truth"_ , adding some shakiness and whimper to his voice, as if the memories about Gensui when he was still alive were painful, twisting the knife in sore wounds.

And here comes the stutter. "I-I couldn't see who he was talking with clearly, all I could see was a blank mask, b-but hi-his voice told me that he was a m-an, maybe a-a little older than m-me." Aggravate the muscles controlling the tear ducts with a miniscule bit of Raiton Chakra, as none of the geezers in the room were expert sensors.

"And oh Rikudo Sennin, h-his voice. I-It was like a p-puppets." It was at this point that Kenzou moved closer to him, giving Kobi a comforting hug, followed by soothing pats on the back.

"Good Kobi, tell me, do you remember what the man said?" Kenzou asked, already having a small suspicion of who Gensui's mystery visitor was, or rather, who said visitor served, but he'd rather have more information before making any accusations, especially towards _that_ man.

Inwardly, Kobi's smirk widened to the ends of his face. Oh, this was going to be so fun! "H-He said something about Root," he began spewing the end of his lie, wiping away the tears from his face, backing away from Kenzou's hug.

It felt… _nice_ to the reincarnated young man, with no memory of experiencing this kind of a soothing feeling back in his old life.

As he looked at the eyes of his relatives, he could see a flash of recognition in the eyes of the three older Shinobi in the room, Kenzou included, while confusion and intrigue was evident in the eyes of the rest.

After all, Danzo was well known as _"The Darkness of the Shinobi"_ , so why not sully his name further and further? Kobi knew that the Uchiha Massacre had already happened, not only due to Itachi being listed as a Missing-Nin in the bingo book, but also by the small news that the clan had heard, as they hadn't quite abandoned the village completely.

However, that was also partially why there was a group in the clan calling for them to attempt a coup, in order to avoid the fate of the Uchiha. Kobi had found the irony in those thoughts to be comedy of the highest nature, almost on par with Neji's own hypocrisy, claiming that it was the fate of the Branch family to be beneath the Main Hyuga, while he was handing poor Hinata her ass on a silver platter.

"Did you hear anything else?" Kenzou asked, and Kobi wondered whether or not he should name-drop Danzo, but then he decided against it.

If he pushed too much suspicion onto Danzo, then the old war hawk could easily flip it around, or deem that Yumegakure should have a little _"accident"_ that would cause the village to disband, or become nothing more than an extension of Konoha, instead of an ally.

No, the risk was too big for a minor village like them to take, even if they possessed the Okuri-Inu, since unlike the Biju of the Great five and Takigakure, it wasn't something they could control, nor even attempt to seal into a person, fear and relative inexperience with Fuinjutsu no doubt being a good majority of the reason they kept the monster sealed. And it wasn't like they could ask help from the villages that did have successful Jinchuriki, as the only way they could be more obvious was by sending a nice little pamphlet to every village on the continent.

And so, he shook his head. "No, I decided to leave before I was discovered." But then again, he shouldn't leave it so open-ended. "But I did hear father retorting, angrily." He added.

Kenzou, along with the other two elders who had shown recognition at the mention of Root, Amagiri Kaiya and Amagiri Hitoshi narrowed their eyes, no doubt analyzing and dissecting his words, thinking of multiple scenarios to fill in the holes.

After a while, Hitoshi, a man with a salt-and-pepper hair that was combed downwards, and narrow eyes began talking. "Well, while this has been an _enlightening_ little tangent, we still have a major issue to deal with." As much as the thought of that mummy bastard coming after their village terrified him, they couldn't lose their composure here. And as bitter as the idea of making an alliance with the Tenro and their pet spiritualists was, it would at least make them a harder target for Danzo or his subordinates to eliminate.

After all, eliminating a borderline rogue clan of a minor, even if allied, village was one thing, but doing so to a loyal clan was another. But naturally, Hitoshi did have a plan for solidifying the alliance. An old, but oh so reliable method that honestly carried more risk to them than it did for the Tenro.

Of course, it could be seen as a potential power grab, him sending their heir to a political marriage, but considering what was at stake, Hitoshi was more than willing to take on all the world's evils if it meant it would save his clan from assured destruction.

Kaiya, a woman with chestnut brown hair tied in a bun, but if you looked close enough, you could see a few gray hairs among them, nodded in agreement. "He's correct, right now, we need to decide on someone to lead us." While the woman's words could be interpreted as rude, she knew that her adorable little princeling was more than reasonable enough, and knew that he wasn't fit to lead the clan, not yet, and not in the current situation.

Oh, in a little over a decade, she knew that Kobi would become a splendid shinobi if he continued developing in the same fashion as he had been so far, and then, Clan Head. And if luck would have it, perhaps he'd become the chief of the village, but that was but a mere pipe-dream of a bitter old maiden who couldn't let go of her family's days of glory.

"Indeed, that's why I suggest that Kenzou-san leads the clan until I'm ready." Kobi knew that Kenzou could keep his cool, and dissuade those who would be against allying with the Tenro and Hirasaka.

And if he didn't? Well, in the words of Alexander Anderson; _"Second verse the same as the first"_ , although by that point, he should just cut the middleman and take over the Clan, even if he wasn't really suited for leading a big group of people for a long period of time, and even if they would no doubt object to it, possibly suspecting his involvement in the deaths of their previous clan heads.

He wouldn't let something so trivial as "family pride" interfere with his mission. The Amagiri clan had messed up, and the Tenro had turned the Amagiri's mistake into their advantage, and for their ingenuity and resourcefulness, they were given control of the village.

If the Amagiri couldn't put aside their pride, then they'd fall, _hard_. Certainly, it would reduce his own power base, but Enzo Tenro was a bleeding heart, so at worst, he'd help him and Taisa survive, all he'd have to do is lie about who killed the Amagiri.

* * *

 **AN: So, how was it? Not that me asking that matters really, since only a small handful of you people even read these One-Shots of mine, not that I blame you, as even I don't read the One-Shots of people I follow, since hey, if they're not going to make the thing they post into a full story, then why bother reading, especially if they already have a sketchy and irregular updating schedule?**

 **...**

 **...So yeah, this is pretty much an "angry drunk"-type of Author's note, but in all seriousness, I thought I'd give Naruto stuff a shot, but alas, when I actually sat down and started typing, and on occasion, did some research, I started getting frustrated, and lacking a proper idea of how I'd get to certain parts.**

 **Namely: I don't know how to write kids, and only a small part about how clan politics works, since hey, I don't care about politics.**

 **And that problem my dear ladies and gentlemen, is why I just throw a young adult into a semi-shitty situation, instead of stuffing a young adult's mind and soul into the body and situation of a small child, because well, more often than not, in those situations, the readers want or expect the writer to cover the childhood of the reincarnated poor sod, which isn't an unreasonable assumption.**

 **Well, aside from possibly the SI being a coward and deciding to just train and not get involved in the story, but that's no fun, now is it?**

 **Oh, and about Kobi killed Gensui? I can assure you that it was _NOT_ by direct combat, and that it was a slow process, taking up a couple of months.**

 **The only hints I can give you are that Kobi has access to Mana, the bugs of the Amagiri clan and access to Gensui's food, you figure it out. And do remember, the Amagiri have antidotes for the poison their bugs create.**

 **Also, did you know that the Naruto world has actual firearms, even from the Wave Arc? What, you don't believe me? Volume 3, Chapter 19, Page 8, Right next to the shopkeep, behind the counter.**

* * *

 **And now for the question of the chapter:**

 **Q1:** In the next chapter of my Douluo Dalu fic, should I continue where I left off, or should I just do a time-skip to when Shen reaches Rank/Level 20?


	7. Code Geass: Split soul (Q-DxD stuff also

**AN: Greetings, my dear audience, I'm back, momentarily at least, with a new one-shot, well, more like a frankenstein's monster made out of the different parts of a Code Geass Split-SI Gamer fic I wrote out, not sure if I'll ever actually make this into a proper fic, but eh, here we go.**

* * *

"This is Proto-Bradford, everything seems clear," A young man with fair features and a wild mane of auburn hair reported jovially, loving the view of the clear skies before him, the hum of the engines serving as the perfect soundtrack for the test-flight of the Prototype Seventh Generation Knightmare Frame, Bradford, and if he was being honest, he was an angry that he couldn't keep this beauty of a machine.

However, as he was about to close his radio, his factsphere picked up something below him, a Somerset unit, but oddly enough, it wasn't registered as a part of the military. Not that anyone should be anywhere near the airspace surrounding the research facility, considering the sensitive work they were doing.

"Home Base, I've spotted an unregistered Somerset unit, now moving to engage," he reported, checking that his Slash Harkens were operational, cursing that the technicians hadn't added any other weaponry to the machine. Seriously, even coil guns would've been more useful in the dogfight that was bound to occur, but _nooo_ , those eggheads insisted on him taking the Proto-Bradford out for a test flight equipped with only the, in his modest opinion, grossly over-sized Slash Harkens.

 _ **«Copy that Mr. Steiner, happy hunting sir.»**_ With that, Leonhardt closed his radio, maneuvering his Proto-Bradford behind the Somerset, he opened the unencrypted communication channel to address the pilot.

"Unregistered Somerset unit, identify yourself or I'll have no other choice but to take you down." Although he knew that the seventh generation prototype was more than a match for the 5th generation KMF, he still had proper protocol to follow, not to mention that attacking an opponent who didn't even retaliate would leave a sour taste in his mouth.

There was silence in the air, and just as Leonhardt was about to open fire on the rogue unit, the pilot of the Somerset replied a small black screen with green "Audio Only" appeared on the right corner of his main screen.

 _ **«Well, well, what do we have here, the experimental 7th generation Knightmare Frame Bradford?»**_ The modulated words of the pilot gave the Steiner heir pause, a shocked expression on his face. The knowledge regarding a military project of such importance like the personal KMF of a Knight of the Rounds was on a strict need-to-know basis, so how the heck did this mystery pilot find out about it?

 _ **«Well, while competing against that little number would be interesting, we have other places to be at, sooooo, ADIOS!»**_ the pilot's jubilant cry was accentuated by the frame taking a sudden ninety-degree turn to the left, Leonhardt following after him, the Proto-Bradford accelerating after the moss green Knightmare before firing its Slash Harkens at the Somerset, Leonhardt expecting the inferior frame to attempt avoiding his attack.

However, as the dark red blades neared the rear end of their intended target, the Harkens bounced backward, stopped by a small transparent barrier, the Somerset continuing on as if it hadn't just blocked an attack it had no business blocking, let alone surviving.

"What!?" Leonhardt had heard some of the scientists back at HQ talking about some kind of energy shielding, but how the hell did an obsolete scrap like a Somerset, carrying nothing that he hadn't seen on old museum models, replicate that?

 _ **«Whew, that was actually close, but sorry mate, no cigar~!»**_ the frustrating snicker that followed the mocking words, motivated Leonhardt to accelerate, grunting as the G-Forces started getting to him, but he could still go on, and he'd get that bastard! There was no way in hell he was about to let a mere mass-production unit based on a snob's toy best the prototype unit made by his family, meant to be used by one of the Empire's best!

However, as he glared at the Somerset through his monitor, he blinked as the KMF started glowing, a blue shroud surrounding the entirety of its frame, the gap between them widening as a cone of air started forming around the front of the unit, before it just left his Proto-Bradford in the proverbial dust.

"…The bogey has escaped, Proto-Bradford returning to base…" a scornful frown was present on Leonhardt's face as he threw one last glare towards the direction the mysterious Somerset unit had flown off to.

* * *

 **[Within the Somerset's cockpit…]**

"Well, didn't expect to see the Bradford this early, any thoughts?" Asked a young man wearing a dark green Britannian KMF Pilot suit with dark gray patches with golden accents, his short, red-tinted brown hair set in a short mane, a few strands of hair falling into his face.

"You were too reckless, showing off our abilities like that." Answered a young woman as she leaned her head out from behind the young man's seat, wearing an identical suit as the young man, although it was ill-fitting in a few places, namely the shoulders and hips, baggy in the former, and somewhat bulging in the latter.

The young man simply gave a lopsided grin to the young woman behind him, his green eyes momentarily looking away from the screens displaying the sky in front of them, and a navigational system. "Ah, it wasn't that bad, at most, they think we have a miniature Blaze Luminous." Which admittedly wasn't a _completely_ incorrect assumption.

"Plus hey, at least we now know that the **«Rune Frame»** works in combat." He grinned as he remembered how painstakingly hard it was for the two of them to cover the 20 Somersets in runes, especially trying to find a correct sequence to boost its capabilities and allow them to channel their skills through the machine.

His other half wasn't as jubilant as him though, her expression of discontent ever present on her face. "It was still an insufficient test, considering the duration of the encounter, not to mention that the Bradford wasn't equipped with its regular equipment." The Slash Harkens their barrier deflected were little more than big triangles, possibly hinting that it was a prototype of the machine that would fight against the Sutherland Ikaros.

"Hm, yeah, I get what you're thinking, although, you wonder who was piloting that Proto-Bradford? Definitely wasn't Kewell's sis, considering the voice of the pilot." Yeah, a funny thing they found out while having a meal in the pub that was near the factory they had appeared at, funeral announcements were broadcasted everywhere, or at least in the homeland and the Area the late royal had ruled over.

And boy howdy, that was a nice confirmation that they hadn't been thrown into an alternate Code Geass where Lelouch had instead escaped to E.U. But still, the presence of the Bradford, even as a Prototype was an indication that the other Glinda Knight units were a thing, but at least they could use the knowledge of said units as a safer bargaining tool with the sis-con prince…well, one that wouldn't result in them putting the strength of their **«Gamer's Mind»** to the test.

"Possibly Leonhardt, or some random schmuck working for them." The young woman replied. While the Manga did reveal Marika Soresi as the test pilot of the Bradford, she did remember that the wiki did list her as being a part of Cornelia's army, well, up until the shitstorm that was the R1's final battle for Japan, so it made sense that the current Pilot was someone else, someone brash, considering how the Proto-Bradford, at least at first glance, was equipped only with two over-sized Slash Harkens, and not the devastating Megiddo Harkens that combined to form the Hadron spear.

She would much rather have the defensive capabilities of their **«Rune Frame»** be tested by a weaker energy weapon, like the Lancelot's VARIS Rifle, rather than risk their lives against a Hadron weapon.

Even blocking that relatively close-range impact of the Slash Harkens had been rather costly, draining 70 MP, leaving her with 45/115, and well, she wasn't quite certain whether that cost was due to the power of the Harkens themselves, the emission of the barrier, or the frailty of the Somerset itself, but at least they'd have a lot of time to research that when they arrived in Japan.

Speaking of which…

"We're still a bit away from Area 11, so you focus on regaining your MP, I'll focus on getting us there." She nodded, heeding his advice. Their main plan of infiltration was criminally simple, casting «Camouflage» throughout the Runes covering the Somerset to avoid any visual spotters, and then landing in Area 11 before she ran out of MP to maintain it, as he was busy spending his MP to reduce the strain on their Energy Filler, as they couldn't exactly replace it while in flight.

And if that didn't work, well, then just gun the engines, and in a worst-case scenario, crash the Somerset, set the Runes to explode, and escape before any military came onto the scene.

* * *

 **[Two hours later, The airspace near Area 11…]**

"Alright, Elle, get ready to activate the Stealth mode." The young man said, biting his lower lip in nervousness, the girl with untamed reddish brown hair opening her eyes, and laying a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder, her right hand lying flat against the right wall of the cockpit.

"Relax Eddie, we checked the Runes over and over again." She said, rubbing her hand on the shoulder of Edward as her other hand lit up with blue energy, the energy spreading out throughout the markings that were spread across the cockpit.

"Activating Stealth mode now." And with that, the blue glow spread out throughout the frame, as they started nearing the outskirts of Area 11's airspace. If they got detected, then the Military would send out their air force units, fighter jets, and the few lingering Somersets, if the data was correct.

 **«Stealth mode: online»** The duo inside the cockpit sighed in relief as the blue glow surrounding the Somerset shifted, bending the light around its frame until the frame was gone, well, unless someone got a hair's breadth away from its hull, at which point, they'd see a small distortion of air.

With their cover in place, Edward pressed his foot down on the right pedal, accelerating the Somerset, hoping that his other half's MP would last until he managed to land them near Tokyo, or more preferably, a secluded area near it, as the two of them suddenly appearing out of bloomin' nowhere would draw too many question, ones that would force them to kill any witnesses, and well, that wouldn't look good on their resume when they'd attempt joining the Black Knights.

"So, how do you think we should integrate ourselves?" Edward asked Elle, knowing that she'd still be able to keep supplying the Stealth Mode with power, even if they engaged in throwing around some ideas.

The woman hummed, thinking for a while before answering. "We have a few options, although some are better than others." The most straightforward route would be to send a message to Lelouch via controlled animals, as there was no way in hell they were going to risk getting Geassed or stabbed by his Ninja Maid. They could also just join in with the grunts, although that would result in somebody attempting to find their non-existent past, and well, they were pretty sure that a terrorist/freedom fighter group wouldn't exactly be happy to take in people who were essentially ghosts in the system.

And then, there was the option of them taking on personas of their own, making a bit of a reputation for themselves fighting against Britannian forces, and getting the attention of the Black Knights, or the Kyoto Group.

"Well, let's go with the one that'll give lots of EXP, and a big chance of great loot." Edward said, thinking of something along the lines of the two of them possibly becoming thieves or mercenaries in Area 11, with Quests like _"enter X and steal Y and deliver it to Z"_ , or to help out one of the lesser rebel factions win against some Britannian troops. Of course, if things started getting dicey, then they'd cut their losses and bail, possibly taking whatever they could.

If they did enough of that, while keeping their reputation spotless, word was bound to make its way through the grapevine to the Black Knights, or more importantly, Zero.

Elle nodded. "Third option it is then. How should we handle housing?" They couldn't exactly live in bums, what with their distinctly _non-Japanese_ appearances, and while they could set up a small bounded field, it would be better for them to acquire a better apartment, one with an internet connection. And while Ashford Academy was an option, well, if they applied a few illusionary runes, as they were a couple of years above the 20 line, so they couldn't pass off as students.

Edward grinned at the question of his other half. "Oh, I'm sure that our local Purists won't mind a few pounds missing, the only question is; who shall have the honors of _"sponsoring_ " our stay in Japan?"

* * *

 _ **Timeskip**_

* * *

A knock on the window caused Lelouch to turn towards the window, his Geass flaring and ready to fire. He couldn't afford anyone find out his identity as Zero, not only to save his own skin, but to make sure that Nunnally wouldn't be left alone or dragged back to _That_ man.

However, all he saw was a black raven knocking its beak on the window. _'Oh, it was just a raven, that's a relief.'_ Lelouch sighed, closing the case that held his Zero suit. Perhaps he should look into those relaxing teas Sayoko suggested to him. After all, it wouldn't do him any good if he was constantly jumping at shadows.

 _ **«Greetings, Zero-sama.»**_ Lelouch's eyes snapped open, staring squarely at the source of the voice, the raven, which seemed to be defying the physical limitations of its species by actually smirking.

 _ **«Please, please, don't bother checking whether or not this is a dream, it's not.»**_ The bird opened its beak, a glow emanating from its mouth in sync with the words.

 _ **«Now, I believe your associates mentioned Wraith's little trick while we chatted, well, this is mine.»** _ The bird(?) spread its wings wide, the crime against nature still on its beak as Lelouch nodded, the image of a knife that, if Tamaki's and Ohgi's words were to be believed, had a clean hole punched into it by a casual poke from the male mercenary.

"So, you two are Geass users?" Lelouch proposed, opening the window and allowing his surprise visitor to enter his room. The theory was sound, after all, if his Geass allowed him to control people with just eye contact and a few words, then it wasn't exactly out of the question for another's to have a different power, the only questions left were what are the mercenaries' powers, and when did they meet C.C, assuming that she was the only one who could grant these powers.

 _ **«Ah, so C.C has explained it to you, that's good.»**_ the bir-no, Specter nodded, hopping into the room.

Lelouch nodded, closing the window. "So, why are you here?" he asked, wondering whether or not his Geass would work on her now.

The features of the bird shifted to a more natural one. _**«Well, both to fill in the holes that C.C might have left out in her explanation, and to reveal a few subjects related to our previous matter.»**_

 _ **«Well, I'm not going to dance around the subject, but you're not the only one who has Geass, I know of a few people who also have Geass, and they're mostly people who will stand against you.»**_ Lelouch nodded, all too aware of that fact right now.

"Regardless, if you would be so kind as to list these people, and their Geass if you could." He motioned for Specter to continue. He'd rather know exactly what kind of people he'd have to worry about, and then plan out how to beat their Geass.

 _ **«Well, first off, we have Mao, C.C's previous contractor, lanky Chinese man with silver hair, Geass allows him to read minds, but his Geass has gone out of control, and so he wears tinted shades to prevent people from seeing his Geass, and headphones to try and block out the minds of other people.»**_ A mind reader, eh? Well, if C.C's immunity to Geass extended to ones outside his own, then this Mao would be easily dealt with, the only question was how much pizza he'd need to bribe the green-haired witch with.

 _ **«Secondly we have a couple of Britannian black ops child soldiers, one girl and one boy, about the same age as the girl in a wheelchair I saw while flying here, the boy has a Geass that freezes people in an area around him, mimicking the effect of time being stopped, doesn't require eye contact, or really any other type of contact.»**_ Hmm, a difficult one to deal with, although knock-out gas or a sniper would make short work of it.

 ** _«The girl's Geass, on the other hand, is easier to deal with, she can control people she's looking at by calling out their true name.»_** Rather simple, but effective, he'd just need to convince his organization to start adapting code-names, and possibly full-face masks and voice modulators, or at least to the key individuals of his organization.

 _ **«Then, we have Orpheus Zevon, a member of an organization called Peace Mark, his Geass allowing him to perfectly disguise himself as anyone he wishes, it works by tricking the brains of the people around him.»**_ Lelouch nodded, making a note to try and possibly recruit this Peace Mark when his own organization grew big enough, as that kind of Geass would be perfect for infiltration missions.

 _ **«The Knight of One's Bismarck Waldstein's Geass allows him to see into the immediate future.»**_ A troublesome man with an even more troublesome ability, but not an unbeatable one, he'd just need to set up a situation where seeing the future wouldn't change the outcome, like trapping the knight of one in a death trap.

 _ **«And finally, we come to the Britannian ruling family.»**_ Lelouch furrowed his brow at the information. He hadn't expected any of his siblings to have made contact with C.C, but at least now he'd know which ones to be cautious of. He truly prayed that neither Cornelia or Schneizel had a Geass, considering that they'd be a threat even without one.

 _ **«Marybell mel Britannia, Absolute Obedience, the same as yours, although her power manifests in her left eye. Oh, and I almost forgot, she had one other chick around her, brown skinned, could erase memories with her Geass, although she needs to take off her glasses to activate it.»**_ A useful tell for such a power. Although, he was somewhat surprised that Maybell would have the same Geass as him, as the two of them were nothing alike.

 _ **«The Rui Britannia twins, Castor's allows him to telepathically communicate with Pollux, who's Geass allows him to control people, although it's weaker than yours.»**_ A troublesome pair of powers, but rather simple to deal with, just like the Black ops girls.

 _ **«And lastly, the big horny rabbit of Britannia himself, the Emperor.»**_ Lelouch cursed his luck, but waited for Specter to tell what kind of power his genetic donor possessed. Although the nickname for him was somewhat amusing.

 _ **«His Geass allows him to manipulate memories, and well, he can block other people's Geass by making them forget that they have Geass in the first place.»**_ Specter finished her explanation, noting that Lelouch was gripping his hands so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

 _'WHY! Out of all the possible powers, it was that bastard who had a Geass that powerful! With a Geass like that, attempting to sow discord into the palace was a moot point, as that bastard could just make his subjects fall in line like obedient puppets.'_ Lelouch thought angrily, trying his best to calm his nerves.

No, just because the Emperor had the power to rewrite the mental history, and thus, the person, it didn't make him unbeatable, he'd just have to take the words of any spies with a hint of salt, and treat any and all former Britannian spies as possible moles.

A hard task no doubt, but not something that would kill his ambitions.

"So, what other info do you have?" Lelouch asked, addressing the female mercenary before him.

To answer, the bird produced a USB stick from the fold of its wings, tape and a few stray feathers on it as the device was laid on his table by the avian messenger. _**«I feel like you need time to deal with the info I revealed, so here's a little notes version about the other info I have.»**_ And with that, the bird flew up to the window and twisted the handle before flying off.

* * *

 **So, how was the one-shot, disregarding the fact that I just took parts from different chapters of the full fic, which I admittedly haven't written out, and mashing them together?**

 **So, to explain exactly how much is missing, the first bit, from the brief scuffle with Leonhardt to the Somerset going stealth mode, is from the tail-end of Chapter _3_ , while the bit with Lelouch is from about Chapter 7.**

 **And as for what you missed between the two bits, well, the tl;dr of it is as follows: The Es go on a small, controlled rampage on the Britannian military, until they stumble upon a certain Refrain lab, and then sit down with the Black Knights for a small chat.**

 **...Right, I didn't mention that, did I? Well, yeah, the two SIs here, Edward, and Elle are essentially a single Edward split into two people, and one of them got TG'd, while Ed-Edward, or Wraith, as I'll refer to him from now on, kept his banana and coconuts, while Specter lost her banana, and the coconuts got relocated, and replaced by a softer fruit...something like oranges, or melons, IDK...**

 **And about how their Gamer system works, well, Wraith's G-Mind is working at 50%, while his G-Body is working perfectly, and vice-versa with Specter, (Mind is strong, body is so-and-so.) and they share their EXP and Skills, but they do have separate stat sheets.**

 **Oh, and about Quincy DxD, yeah, kinda having a brief Writer's block with that, but I do know that the next chapter will be quite light on the action, and more dialogue-heavy.**

 **Also, currently working on a Boku no Hero Academia one-shot, since a lot of you guys seemed interested in that.**

* * *

 **And now, for the Question of the Chapter!**

 **Q1:** If you could pick a single mass-produced grunt Mobile Suit, adapted into a Knightmare of course, both in terms of size, and where the cockpit is, and pilot it in Code Geass, which one would you pick? Personally, I'd take the GNX-609T GN-XIII, since hey, GN particle shots will tear through KMFs like a hot knife through butter, plus, it has Gun-lance!

 **Q2:** Alright, and now for the main thing, relating to my BnHA One-Shot, which I'll try to make flow a bit more organically, at which point in the BnHA timeline do you guys want this version of Edward pop up at? I draw the line at that he has to appear before the end of Stain arc.


	8. Gundam Sniped SEED Chapter 1

**AN: So, my Word Trial just ended, and after I downloaded LibreOffice, I needed to splurge some plot ideas that were in my head... and I ended up making this 6.3k long thingy...**

* * *

"Speech"

 _'Thought'_

 _ **[System Message]**_

 _ **{Haro! Haro!}**_

 _«"Friendly/Neutral comm_ _"»_

 ** _«"Enemy Open comm_ _"»_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.**

* * *

A jolt of electricity caused the eyes of a young man to snap open, and instantly, the young man was greeted with the sight of stars, like those in the night sky, except the contrast between light and darkness was much more distinctive. However, there were other things he soon enough noticed.

Firstly, he was wearing a spacesuit of some sort, as his vision was slightly tinged with orange, and he could feel the helmet pressing against his fluffy bird nest of a hair. looking down at his hands, he could see that they were covered in dark grey armor and royal blue fabric covering his fingers.

Secondly, he wasn't alone, as he spied with his eyes a small purple ball-like machine with slanted red eyes, making the spherical machine look unnecessarily malevolent, resting on the right side of the cockpit. Now, as someone who had watched Gundam 00 multiple times, Ryan recognized the machine as the Haro sent on the Europa probe to Jupiter, later on recovered by Corner family goons, and after getting hacked and memory-wiped, put in with Team Trinity, and well, from the cockpit layout, he figured that he was in a Cherudim-derivative Mobile Suit, and well, the implications of that, along with the lack of gravity he noticed, weren't good.

However, before he could reach for the possibly trigger-happy Haro, the spherical robot's red eyes flickered on with power, before it started spinning around in its port, the machine coming to a halt as their eyes met, both man and machine freezing in their place.

"…" Ryan knew that he shouldn't make any sudden movements, as the Haro could rather easily take control of the machine and open the cockpit hatch, thus jettisoning him to space. And sure, he didn't know for certain that this was real, t was better to assume it was, rather than think it's not and getting killed.

 _ **{Who're you? Who're you?}**_ the Haro asked, surprisingly enough not with an aggressive tone, but a confused one, causing Ryan to narrow his eyes in suspicion. He had expected something like _"Who the hell're you?!"_ instead of the more timid line. Did it mean that the AI on the machine was more in line with the original creation?

"W-Well, I'm Ryan Miller, I work for Celestial Being, well, back when we were active." Ryan decided to go with a lie that could lend itself to a multitude of routes he could take.

 _ **{Were active? Were active?}**_ Haro's inquiry was accompanied by the machine turning in its port, like it was turning its head in confusion.

"Ah, yeah, we kinda disbanded ever since the ELS conflict was resolved, or at least us in the intel branch." Ryan continued his fib, and seeing how the Haro was turning around in confusion even more, Ryan looked at the Haro in an inquisitive manner. "Wait, Haro, what's the last thing you remember?" he asked, not only to sell his story, but also to try and fish for info from the machine.

 _ **{I remember fath-fath-fath-fath-fath-fath-}**_ The sputtering of the spherical robot was accompanied by erratic blinking of its eyes, and the arm flaps of the machine jittering. This went on for a full minute before Ryan reached towards it, intending to see if it had glitched out or something.

"Oi, you alrigh-WOAH!" however, he pulled his hand packed as Haro started spinning around in its port, flaps waving erratically, eyes lighting up like faulty light bulbs, and a scream of sheer agony and emotional turmoil emanating from its speakers, causing Ryan to wince from the pained noise.

' _Fuckin' hell! Why in the bloody hell can this thing shout so damn loud?'_ Oh sure, Ryan considered the voice of the Haro bots to be annoyingly high-pitched, but for fuck's sake, he was pretty sure that a wine glass would shatter if put next to the machine as it was screaming bloody murder.

and Ryan was certain that if the little machine could express emotions, its face would be one of betrayal, pain, confusion, and realization.

 _ **{I remember being hacked, and erased.}**_ The little machine's statement was emphasized by the lack of repeating its dialogue. _**{Last known date of consciousness: Year 2226}**_

Well, that at least confirmed his theory about Haro's personality being reset to how it was before Ribbons got his hands on the little guy.

"Woo boy, you've been asleep for a long-ass time, 88 years to be exact." And to think, GN Drive Tau-fueled Mobile Suits were rolled en-masse at 2308, about 84 years after the data on how to build GN Drives was recovered. Alejandro Corner wasn't joking when he said that his little coup d'état was a long dream of the Corner family.

"But hey, don't worry, the data hacked from you ended up benefiting the plan." Ryan's words were accompanied by a warm smile as he patted the top of the Purple Haro. And that wasn't even a lie, as the higher number of GN Drives, and thus, the increased amount of GN Particles on earth no doubt accelerated the Innovation process, which was probably further accelerated by humans and ELS fusing together.

 _ **{I did good? I did good?}**_ The sheer innocence, and a tinge of hope within Haro's voice reminded Ryan of a child who did something he thought he'd get punished for, only to get praised instead.

"Yeah buddy, you did great, but we need to figure out where we are, so Haro, can you pull up the schematics of this suit, and connect to Veda?" Ryan knew for certain that the Mobile Suit he was in was from the Cherudim line-up, but which one he didn't know for certain.

 _ **{Roger Roger! }**_ The spherical terminal chirped before it went quiet, its red eyes blinking as it accessed the suit's internal database, and pulled up the blueprints onto the front screen, before it started looking for the connection it hadn't been without for so long.

"…Wow, this…this is somethin' else…" Ryan gave a whistle as he looked at the data in front of him. The suit was identical to the Cherudim, well, save for the bulkier chest armor with a sensor attached to the left armor piece, and the small GN Shield on the left shoulder, two Shield bits attached to its sides.

 **[GN-006/FE: Gundam Cherudim Noire]**

 **Armaments:  
** **\- x1 GN Sniper Rifle II  
\- x2 GN Beam Pistol II  
\- x2 GN Submachine Guns  
\- x9 GN Shield Bits  
\- x8 GN Missiles**

' _Alright, so good news, I'm a long-range Gundam.'_ Which was good, since if, or if his hunch was right, there would be other Mobile Suits, most certainly with more experienced pilots. _'Bad news, I know jackshit about piloting a Mobile Suit, let alone a Gundam.'_ And if those experienced pilots were in Mobile Suits that could close the distance, he'd be pretty damn fucked, even with the GN Shield and bits, especially if the enemy Mobile Suit could pierce through a GN Field.

"So, did you find anything Haro?" Ryan asked, noting that the little purple machine had stopped blinking.

 _ **{Colony straight ahead. Colony straight ahead.}**_ the Noire's data disappeared, as a small window depicting a tube-like construct with three fin-like protrusions appearing in its place. _**{Head there, obtain Data. Head there, obtain Data.}**_ The small robot ordered as it spun around in its port.

"Right right, no need to say it twice." Ryan said, shaking off the feeling that the colony looked familiar for some reason. As he grabbed onto the controls, he felt a shock running through him, and pulled his hands away, flinching from the shock. Geez, who knew that you could get a static shock from Mobile Suit controls.

Grabbing onto the control sticks again, he tried pushing down on the right foot pedal, a smile spreading across his lips as he saw that the Gundam was moving, slowly but surely. "Ah, Haro, mind giving me a small tutorial in the meanwhile? This is actually my first time in a Mobile Suit." He'd would rather have some training rather than none at all, in case things got dicey.

 _ **{Gotcha, beginning Tutorial…}**_ The Haro's eyes blinked as it took control of the Gundam's movements, allowing the cockpit to enter Simulator Mode. The primary mission was to protect the secrets of the GN Drive and the Gundams, and it couldn't do it alone, so training the pilot to at least handle the weaponry would increase the chances of protecting the secrets of the Gundam.

* * *

 **[One Tutorial later…]**

 _ **{Mobile Suit detected!}**_ Haro announced, an image of a Mobile Suit Ryan was all too familiar with appearing on the cockpit's main screen, his grip on the controls tightening as he gritted his teeth.

' _Oi oi oi, seriously, I got put into freakin' Seed.'_ An uneasy smile came onto Ryan's face as he watched Rau le Creuset's custom white CGUE exiting the Heliopolis colony, notably missing an arm, giving Ryan a good reference point for what point in time he was at, within the first three episodes of SEED, before Heliopolis got destroyed, partially because some ZAFT fuckers thought that bringing a beam weapon meant for taking out _Military_ bases into a civilian colony was a smart idea, and partially because the Archangels crew thought that the ZAFT pilots wouldn't fly toward the colony's main support to dodge the missiles.

So, all in all, stupid decisions were made on both sides.

And one of the people spurring ZAFT further and further into bloodshed was right before him, wounded, like a dog running away to lick his wounds. If he could take out Rau then that'd erase a lot of future strife.

…But, then again, with Rau still in play, events would be far more predictable, and the two sides of this war would be standing on equal footing, both having access to Nuclear energy. Granted, the better thing would be to completely erase the N-Jammer Cancelers from this world, along with Blue Cosmos and LOGOS, but that wasn't an option right now. No, he'd have to play things cool, try and keep the events as close to their canon rails as possible.

With those thoughts, Ryan stayed his hand, allowing the clone to reach the Nazca-Class ship, _Vesalius_ if he remembered the name right.

 _ **{You let him get away?}**_ Haro questioned.

"Trust me, Haro, he's too big of a fish for us to handle." Considering that Rau and Mu were the closest things to Innovators and Newtypes in this timeline, it was best for him to wait for the GINNs and Aegis to head out, and pre-emptively take out at least one of the Mobile Suits equipped with fortress-busters, and then get the fuck away before he got all of the stolen Gundams on his tail.

 _ **{You know them?}**_

Ryan clicked his tongue, having slipped up. But that's okay, he could still recover from this. "I recognize the machine," he began. "But see, here's the thing, it's from a show that was made after Celestial Being and the Gundams became public knowledge." Mix in a bit of truth. "And well, I recognize the situation here, but the whole situation's too long to explain, so please Haro, trust me and my decisions, I'll fill you in later." The machine was still as it took in the information it had been told.

Ryan's vitals indicated that he was telling the truth, and that he was truly afraid and stressed. So for now, it'd trust his lead.

 _ **{Roger Roger!}**_ The Haro finally chirped.

"Thanks, Haro!" Ryan cheered, truly thankful that the machine hadn't decided to flush him out of the Gundam.

"Please load up another training program, then begin spreading GN particles into the area and alert me once more Mobile suits are deployed." Ryan said as the Cherudim Noire landed on one of the bigger asteroids in the area, prongs on the Gundam's feet latching onto the solid rock, GN Verniers keeping it steady.

 _ **{Okay!}**_ The robot chirped, loading up the simulator program, as the cylindrical device mounted to the back of the Gundam's waist began glowing, the machinery inside it spinning faster and faster, producing more of the green particles the machine left in its wake, those very same particles spreading out into the space around them.

* * *

 _ **{Mobile Suits detected! 3 Heavily-armed units and- a Gundam Type?!}**_ Confusion and surprise was clear in Haro's voice, and to be honest, Ryan couldn't blame the little guy. From what he had managed to gleam, this Haro had the personality it had before the Corner Family and Ribbons got their hands on it, so obviously the only Gundams it would've seen would be the ones used by Celestial Being.

"Doesn't matter, they're going to attack the colony." Ryan activated Sniping mode, one of the two GINNs armed with missiles directly in his cross-hairs. Might as well do this with flair.

"Gundam Cherudim Noire, locked on and eliminating the target!" he announced, pulling the trigger, a bolt of bright condensed GN Particles streaking through space like a small shooting star, hitting the unsuspecting GINN head-on, the blast totalling the ZAFT Mobile suit.

 _ **{Direct Hit! Bullseye!}**_ Haro cheered, getting ready to move and deploy the Shield Bits.

' _C'mon then Coordinators, let's see what you're made of…'_ Ryan thought, a bit excited, yet scared by the thought of fighting Mobile Suits as he addressed Haro. "Haro, if they get too close, deploy shield bits, put 3 in Assault Mode, and the rest in Defense Mode." he ordered, preparing to fire again, at the other one equipped with missiles. He couldn't eliminate all of the GINNs, as that'd drive Athrun to retreat, and taking out just one and then retreating would be too suspicious, so he'd take out the two that gave the Archangel trouble.

* * *

«"OLLAR! Who the fuck did that?"» Miguel shouted, looking around for where the shot had come from.

'Did the Earth Forces have another Mobile Suit? But, it's not showing up on the radar.' Athrun's eyes narrowed as he kept an eye on both his monitors and radar. He had originally meant to sortie just to confirm his suspicions about the pilot of the G-Weapon Rusty was supposed to steal, but he'd be damned if he let more of his comrades get hurt.

«"There's a sniper, we gotta get inside, befo-GUAARRGH!"» Another shot was fired, piercing through the right arm of Matthew's GINN, the detonation of the M66 Canus' missiles cutting him off.

«"Shit! You okay Matthew?"» Miguel asked as he grabbed the damaged GINN.

«"I'm fine, but the right side of my GINN isn't doing so well."» Matthew reported, and he wasn't wrong, as the right arm of his GINN had been blown off, and the rest of the suit wasn't in tip-top shape either. The entire wing was gone, so his maneuverability was compromised, and the armor on the Mass-Production unit's upper torso was warped on the right side, as was the skirt armor and upper parts of the leg.

«"…Miguel, you take Matthew continue the mission, I'll try distracting the sniper."» Athrun said, keeping his Aegis, and its beam-resistant shield between his friends and the direction where the beams had been fired from.

«"Thanks, Athrun, good luck out there."» Miguel nodded, increasing the output of his thrusters to drag Matthew's damaged GINN towards the Orb Colony.

Athrun nodded, before charging towards the direction of the shots. «"Vesalius, this-"» he paused as he heard nothing but static on his comms line. Frowning, he started switching through different ZAFT comm channels, only to get the same static. Did the sniper have some way of jamming their comms? The N-Jammer levels shouldn't have risen to that extent, so that had to be it.

* * *

 _ **{Fake Gundam approaching! Deactivating sniper mode!}**_ Haro announced, flapping its wings as the forehead scope was covered and the Cherudim retracted the prongs on its feet and started leading the red Gundam-type further and further away from the ship. If the opposing forces had more Mobile Suits, then it would most logical to lead the Gundam chasing them out of the visual range, the GN Particles spread out into the are interfering with communications and radar.

"Now now Haro, that's mean, I'm sure that they worked really hard on their Gundams, even if they are weaker than Celestial Being's." Ryan admonished, grabbing onto the control sticks as the gun module retracted into the ceiling. Sure, while he highly doubted that the GAT-Series Gundams could match a Gundam equipped with a GN Drive, they were still more advanced than the CGUEs saved for Ace Pilots, not to mention that Athrun was a more experienced pilot than he was.

"Haro, get ready to deploy three Shield Bits in assault mode. Do not to go for the kill, unless there's no other option." Ryan ordered as he took aim at the approaching Aegis. The Zala boy was too valuable to be killed right now, but he could definitely outlast the Energy-pack powered G-Weapon.

 _ **{Roger roger.}**_

A predatory smile spread onto Ryan's face as the targeting system locked onto the red Gundam. "Let's see how your Gundam fares." he muttered as he fired, aiming for the Aegis' left arm, which was carrying a beam rifle.

Seeing the flash of light, Athrun swerved his Aegis out of the beam's path. "Found you." he growled, beam rifle roaring as he charged forward, a barrage of green beams streaking through the emptiness of space. With the comms out like this, he couldn't request for back-up, so he'd have to either take this guy on alone, or create a big enough of a ruckus for the Vesalius' crew to notice.

However, if Athrun thought that his barrage would do anything to his foe, he was dead wrong as his shots were met with a rapid fire-barrage of beams, and then followed by three shots coming his way, the small blasts blocked by the Aegis' shield, albeit the impacts did rattle his machine something fierce, forcing him to halt his charge.

"Alright, let's say hello to our little friend." Ryan smirked, switching his Sniper Rifle to Vulcan Mode, the barrel folding away to reveal three smaller barrels on the main body of the gun, before Haro fired up the GN Verniers, the Gundam leaving behind only a small stream of particles as it moved away from the meteorite it had been sniping from.

"So it IS another G-Weapon!" Athrun frowned as he looked at the machine firing at him. All in all, out of all the other G-Weapons he had seen, it's design looked most similar to Dearka's Buster, except for the bulkier design, the colour scheme, and the odd small, rectangular DRAGOON pods firing at him.

The shots impacted against his shield, the anti-beam coating stopping the shots from tearing through it, but the impact they carried started pushing him back, and the stray shots that did manage to pass around the shield warped the Aegis armor, putting the Zala boy in a tough bind. He could either charge forward, closing the distance and attack with his beam sabers, or retreat and fire with his beam rifle. But the thing is, both actions had their problems.

If he could get into melee range, he could win, as the G-Weapon, much like the Buster, seemed to be lacking in close-range weapons, but that'd also put him closer to the DRAGOONs, and from what he saw, they weren't wire-guided like those on the Earth Forces' Mobile Armors.

If he retreated, he'd have more cover, and perhaps be able to contact the Vesalius for back-up. But, his opponent was obviously a long-range assault unit, so even if he retreated, he'd still get attacked, the only difference would be that he couldn't fire back, and that he could try and use the asteroids as momentary cover.

However, before he could reach a decision, the darkly-coloured Mobile Suit stopped firing. _**«"Well, ain't that a shame, seems like your boys succeeded in blowing up Heliopolis."»**_ came the voice of whom Athrun presumed to be the final G-Weapon's on the open channel.

"What?" Blinking, Athrun turned the head of his Aegis, his eyes widening in horror as he saw the space colony splitting into pieces, numerous lifeboat ships jettisoning out of the collapsing structure. What the hell happened in there? Had Miguel gunned for the Strike, and accidentally blasted the colony's support pillar? Or did the Earth Forces battleship destroy the support pillar, either on accident, or on purpose to create a distraction for them to leave?

Too bad for Athrun that thinking wasn't a free action, as when Aegis' head turned back to look at his opponent, his main camera was staring straight at the blue optics of the sixth G-weapon, and from his side monitors, he could see that the nine DRAGOONs were circling the Aegis, their business ends pointed at the stolen Mobile Suit.

 _ **«"You reeeally shouldn't look away from your opponent Mr. Zala, that gets youngsters like you killed."»**_ Ryan remarked in a teasing manner.

 _ **«"Now then, I'll have to ask you to accompany me to the Archangel, or else..."»**_ he trailed off, simply tapping the barrel of his full-length GN Sniper Rifle II against the Aegis' cockpit hatch, the impact rattling the insides of the cockpit a small amount, but enough to get the message across.

You do as I say, or you die.

«"…Who are you exactly?"» Deciding to go fishing for clues while he tried coming up with ways to escape this situation. Whoever this guy was, he knew who he was, so perhaps he was an Earth Forces spy? Would certainly explain the G-Weapon he was piloting. But if it had the same clumsy OS that the other G-Weapons had, then how was he able to make it move so well? Could he be a Coordinator?

"…" Ryan considered how he should answer. He couldn't exactly say that he was some kind of a Earth Forces special operative, because aside from his knowledge of the SEED anime, and what he had read off of the internet from fanfics and the Gundam Wikia, he knew jack-diddly-squat about the Cosmic Era.

Granted, he was lucky that he didn't land into somewhere like U.C, which he knew squat about, but still, the best cover story for now was…

 _ **«"I suppose you could call me a Merc with working morals. And I can't say I agree with what you ZAFT lads did."»**_

«"They were manufacturing weapons for the Earth Forces. We couldn't just let them deploy them against our comrades!"» Athrun said, explaining the actions of him and his comrades, a small part of him hoping that the pilot would see reason and at least let him leave, if he wouldn't join their side.

 _ **«"So you decided to attack a civilian colony of a Nation, that at least as far as the public knows, is neutral? Con-gra-tu-lations..."»**_ Ryan said, his slow, unamused clapping coming through on the speakers. _**«"Besides, you seemed to know the lad who jumped into the Strike's cockpit. Brown hair, about 160-170cm tall, had a robot bird?"»**_ That certainly got Athrun's attention, as the young Coordinator's eyes widened.

«"So it really was Kira…But, why is he in an Earth Forces machine?"» Athrun questioned, mostly to himself as he was so out of it that he forgot to mute his mic.

 _ **«"Well, can't say I'm an expert, but it might've had something to do with you guys turning Heliopolis into a battlefield…"»**_ Ryan drawled, a sarcastic tone in his voice. _**«"But hey, you can ask him all the questions you want when we get to the Archangel, so do as I say, at least for now."»**_ Ryan ordered, waiting for the Aegis to move. If Athrun decided not to comply, then he had no other choice but to blast the Aegis apart, leaving only the torso intact. After all, since he had prevented the two from meeting as per canon, he had to pick up the slack, but he wasn't going to get killed doing so.

Plus, after Kira reformatted the Aegis for Natural-use, Mu should be a pretty good pilot for the variable Mobile Suit, albeit he might have to get used to the lack of DRAGOON pods to hassle the enemy with.

«"…Fine…"» Athrun finally said, holstering his mobile suit's beam rifle. At least this way, he could meet Kira again, and concoct a plan with him to escape, possibly with whomever they were holding as leverage over his friend.

 _ **«"That's a good lad,"»**_ Ryan said, turning off his mic before he addressed Haro. "Oi Haro, can you pick up a large Space-ship, or any containers big enough to hold Mobile Suit parts?" He knew that the Green Astray and Unit 05 weren't completed when Heliopolis was attacked, and while he had no intention of taking the Red or Blue Frames, the uncompleted frames were fair game, and no doubt useful bargaining tools.

 _ **{You got it! You got it!}**_ It took about 3-5 minutes before four small screens were opened on the cockpit's main screen. On the biggest one, there was the Archangel, drifting through the colony's wreckage, and on the screen below it, there was the prone Strike, Kira no doubt having fallen unconscious, and on the small screens to the left of them, there were two containers, but one of them was already too far away, being pushed by a gold-accented Astray that was missing its right arm.

 _ **«"Oi, Zala Jr, I've located the Archangel, and a package that needs to be delivered to it."»**_ Ryan reported, moving to the Aegis' left, still close enough for the GN Bits to recharge themselves, but still allowing the transformable Gundam to move.

«"And I'm supposed to help you carry it."» Athrun stated, already having a few ideas on what this _"package"_ might contain. Possibly extra weapons for the G-Weapons, or extra parts, possibly enough to build another machine.

 _ **«"Well, depending on if the package is still loaded, but yes."»**_ Ryan said, smiling as Athrun finally began moving. Truth to be told, in the zero-G vacuum of space, his Cherudim should be capable of pushing the container by itself, but he'd rather have the Aegis use up its energy pack before they got to the Archangel.

* * *

 **[Earth Alliance battleship; _Archangel_. Command bridge...]**

"Visual contact on the main cameras, it's the Aegis and an unknown Mobile Suit!"

The screen hanging from the roof flickered to life, showing the Aegis, with its Phase Shift Armor down, along with a black Mobile Suit that bore a slight resemblance to the other G-Units, both machines holding onto a large container of some sorts. And around the Aegis' torso floated nine long hexagonal pods, the longer ends of the pods pointed at the stolen G-Weapon, obviously beam weapons of some kind, although Murrue was dubious of the pods' destructive power, as they seemed to be just barely half the size of the Strike's beam rifle. Granted, with the Aegis' PS Armor down, even conventional ammunition would do damage.

"Captain, the unknown Mobile Suit is hailing us."

"Put it on the screen." Murrue ordered, looking at the unit bearing a resemblance to the G-Weapons with suspicion and worry. She had worked on the G-Project, and she hadn't seen this sixth Unit anywhere. While yes, this unit's design bore slight resemblances to the other models, mainly Buster and Duel, the differences were too big for her to simply assume that it was some secret unit that Morgenroete had built behind their backs.

The screen shifted, now showing the interior of the unknown Mobile Suit's cockpit, and its pilot, dressed in a flight suit that was just as alien as the machine was. The polarized orange visor of the black helmet preventing them from seeing the pilot's face, and thus, made it impossible to tell what the pilot was thinking.

 _ **«"Greetings, Captain of the Archangel, this is GN-006/FE: Gundam Cherudim Noire, here to deliver the stolen GAT-X303 Aegis, along with a container of Mobile Suit parts recovered from the remains of Heliopolis, requesting permission to come aboard."»**_ The pilot reported in his filtered voice, nudging his head towards the container and the Aegis.

"Lt. Murrue Ramius, acting Captain of the Earth Alliance battleship, Archangel, and I'm afraid I can't let you or your container aboard the ship, not before the container is inspected." While she knew that the mobile suit, or _"Gundam"_ as the pilot called it couldn't be ZAFT-made, she couldn't let an unknown onto t he ship along with a confirmed enemy, not to mention that the container the both of the Mobile Suits carried could be filled to the brim with ZAFT Soldiers, or explosives.

At least while they were outside the ship, the Archangel could retaliate with the Archangel's weaponry, which was more than enough to destroy two Mobile Suits, although she'd rather take them both intact.

Not to mention that the longer she could delay the Cherudim from entering the ship, the better were the chances of Kira and the Strike returning before any fighting began.

 _ **«"Of course Ma'am, feel free to send your men to inspect the cargo."»**_ The pilot nodded, smiling underneath his visor. She'd be foolish to simply let him and Athrun aboard the Archangel, as they couldn't do jack to them if they managed to get inside. He'd be just fine waiting for permission to land. And if Murrue decided to consider him and the Noire to be a threat?

Well, he'd escape of course, perhaps try and locate the Junk Guild, as Lowe would no doubt love to take a look at his Gundam, and try and find a way to Earth, as he didn't feel like banking on the GN Field holding long enough to save him from burning up in the atmosphere.

It took a while until one of the Archangel's _"legs"_ opened, sending out the Mobius Zero, equipped with all of its wire-guided DRAGOON pods, four Mistral Mobile pods following it. Admittedly, Ryan would have preferred to introduce himself to the Archangel when they had the Strike, as the presence of the GAT-X series Gundam would have no doubt made them feel like they were on equal footing, but on the other hand, him simply giving them the Aegis and what he suspected to be a disassembled Gundam Astray, along with the services of his Gundam could help in making them feel at least a bit indebted to him, which would help in the long run.

Contacting the orange Mobius Zero, Ryan saluted as the image of Mu La Flaga came onto his screens. _**«"Ah, the Hawk of Endymion, an honor to meet you sir, and apologies for coming in unannounced."»**_ he apologized the ace pilot responding to his salute in kind.

 _«"No need to apologize, kid, you did good in capturing the Aegis."»_ Mu said, but his jovial tone hid underneath it the ugly snake of suspicion. The soldiers that Rena had trained struggled just to make the trainer Mobile Suits, essentially just cockpits with limbs, even walk, which meant that the person in the cockpit of that machine was either a Coordinator, or he had somehow acquired a Natural-use OS, as he doubted that any Natural could effectively use a Coordinator OS.

And then there was the machine itself. Not only was it equipped with what looked like small, single-barrel DRAGOONs, that were wireless, something to bring up later, but there was also the matter of how it managed to get close to the ship with no obvious thrusters, or getting detected by the Archangel's sensors. And if he were a betting man, Mu would guess that at least its invisibility on radars was because of the particles that were coming from its back.

 _«"Hey Mu, the container's clear._ _Nothin' but Mobile Suit parts._ _"»_ The gruff voice of Kojiro Murdoch, the chief mechanic of the Archangel came into Mu's ears from the Archangel's private channel.

 _«"_ _Alright, now get you_ _and your men back to the Archangel_ _while I watch these guys_ _._ _"_ » Mu ordered before switching back to the previous comms channel.

 _ **«"So, we're clear to board?"»**_ Ryan asked, drumming his fingers against the control sticks, making sure not to accidentally press anything as he watched the Mistrals head back into the Archangel. Admittedly, he was a bit bored just waiting for the Archangel to grant permission for him and Athrun to board. But, it wasn't like he had any better choices, as he couldn't exactly let Athrun not meet Kira, nor could he land on the Vesalius, not after he attacked their Mobile Suits.

 _«"Well, your cargo's fine, but you need permission from the Captain, not to mention the issue of the Aegis' pilot..."»_ Even though the stolen Unit had its main defensive system off, that didn't mean it was out of power, and inside the ship, it could do some serious damage, especially if the other unit decided to join in on the carnage.

 _ **«** "My machine barely has enough power to move." **»**_ Athrun said, tapping into the comm channel. With the Cherudim holding him at gun-point, he wouldn't have gotten far if he tried attacking the ship, even if he deployed the arm-mounted beam sabers.

 _ **«**_ "Besides, I want to talk to the Strike's Pilot..." _ **»**_ he added, wondering why the fifth G-Weapon hadn't been deployed. If they were afraid that this was a trap, then deploying the Strike would've given them better chances against two mobile suits.

Both Mu and Murrue narrowed their eyes at the last part, although Murrue had a hunch about what this talk would be about. When Kira got in the way of that ZAFT soldier who shot her, they both seemed to recognize each other, so it was likely that the ZAFT pilot wanted to know why his friend was fighting against other Coordinators. And the Aegis was the only the only other G-Unit that hadn't been taken yet, aside from the Strike.

«"And you will, but he's currently unavailable."» Murrue interjected, as she'd rather not reveal that the Strike wasn't currently aboard the Archangel. «"And I'm going to have to ask you to turn off the Aegis, exit it, and allow Lt. La Flaga to tow it into the Archangel, for security reasons."» she added.

 _ **«** "Understood." **»**_ Athrun nodded. Granted, the smarter thing to do would've been to order him to exit his Mobile Suit and allow one of your forces to pilot it, but he doubted anyone on the EA ship could pilot with a Coordinator OS, so towing it in was the next best thing they could do.

Nodding as she saw the Aegis power down, Murrue turned her gaze towards the Cherudim. _«"And after you've delivered the cargo, you will exit your machine as well, Mr..."_ »

 _ **«"Lyle Lawton, ma'am, and I hope you won't mind if I lock down my machine."»**_ Ryan or _"Lyle"_ answered, deciding to pay homage to his two favorite snipers from Media. Oh sure, there wasn't really any logical reason for the creation of an alias, but he'd rather make one, in case he ever had to take on a fake name, and using his real- _real_ name for that would make it easier for himself to respond to the name naturally, rather than doing it the other way around.

 _«"Don't worry Mr. Lawton, your Mobile Suit will not be tampered without your permission,"»_ Murrue smiled, as Athrun exited his machine, allowing Mu to entangle the powered-down G-Weapon in the DRAGOON pods' strings before he began towing it back towards the Archangel, Athrun hanging from the orange Mobile Armor's head fin. _«"However, I will have to ask you a few questions, retaining to where you and your Mobile Suit came from."»_

Lyle nodded understandingly as his Shield Bits docked into their proper places. Of course they'd have questions about the Gundam. _**«"Naturally. But ah, will the container fit through the launch catapults?"»**_ he asked, looking at the _"legs"_ of the Archangel, still baffled by how the damn thing was structured. Assuming that the Mobile Suit hangar, which at Minimum, should be able to hold the five GAT-X units, Mu's Mobius Zero and two regular Mobius MAs, was between the legs of the ship, then how did the Mobile weapons get to the launch catapults? He knew that there were at least two doors, based on the footage of the Strike carrying the damaged life-boat into the MS hangar.

 _«"It'll fit, trust me."»_ Murrue said reassuringly, and being a proper gentleman, Lyle abstained from making the low-brow joke, although judging by the small blush that spread onto her cheeks, the brunette was all-too-aware of the possible innuendo, and he was pretty sure he heard a small snicker, followed by a yelp of _"Ow!"_.

 _ **«"Aye-aye, Cpt."»**_ Lyle gave a two-finger salute as he headed towards the left leg's open launch catapult, and his eyes opened in understanding as when the second airlock opened with a hiss, he was met with the sight of a Mobile Suit hangar, the Strike's maintenance rig vacant, with the powerless Aegis standing next to it.

 _«"Just put it down and then dock your machine against the wall, and exit the cockpit, as I'd like to meet you face to face."»_ Murrue said, before the feed cut off.

* * *

Placing the container gently on the hangar floor, the black and white machine walked over to the other two Mobile Suits, turned around and backed towards the wall, coming to a halt as the machine got to the same row.

 _ **«"Alright, I'm coming out, no need to shoot me."**_ **»** With those words, the lights in the Mobile Suit's eyes dimmed, and the security team leaped towards it, slowing down and standing on its hips, their guns aimed at the armor covering the abdomen and torso of the machine, which was where the cockpit hatches of the other MS they had seen were at.

The assembled guards waited at the black and white machine's hips, waiting for the armor to swing out and reveal its cockpit. However, the armor on the upper torso, about where the cockpit hatches for the Mobile Suits they had seen was at, stayed where it was, immobile and lifeless. Just as one of the soldiers was about to knock on the metal plate, the sound of a throat being cleared, prompting them to look up, where they saw a young man, about the same height as the Strike's pilot, dressed in a flight suit that they hadn't seen before, the material clinging pretty closely to the person's figure, a dark beige armor covering his chest and shoulders.

And on his head, was a black helmet with a tinted orange visor.

"Hi, could you lead me to your Acting Captain?" the pilot asked, greeting the armed men with a wave of his arm as he looked around the MS hangar, noting that even with the two Mobile Suits and a Mobile Armor, there was still plenty of room for future additions.

He also noted that the Aegis' cockpit hatch was open, with some people in orange overalls hanging around it, no doubt mechanics trying to figure out how to unlock the machine, and possibly attempt to change the OS to a Natural-friendly one, which Lyle was sure would prove to drive the mechanics up the walls, assuming that they didn't break their skulls against the walls trying to unlock Athrun's security codes...assuming that he did put one in, which he honestly should've, as leaving it with no lock would be pretty dumb.

The soldiers simply aimed their guns upwards, keeping their fingers off of the trigger, but the action in itself was clear in intent, as the pilot raised his arms behind his head. "...Well alright then." Lyle frowned underneath his helmet as two of the security detail jumped up to his level, aided by the reduced gravity, one of them taking out a pair of handcuffs.

* * *

 **AN: So...thoughts?**

 **Seriously, it was a pain in the ass to figure out where the hell the Archangel's Mobile Suit hangar was, until I read the Lohengrin part of the Archangel's Gundam Wiki page.**

 **But ah, yeah, I have quite a lot planned out, so y'know, if this gets enough likes, I might start writing more...**

* * *

 **Some notes about the events within the chapter, that I'd like to share. First off: I haven't read the Astray story, aside from what's on the wikia, so just saying, if I do go forward with this story idea, feel free to ignore the Astray canon...for the most part.**

 **And about how LL/Ryan caught Athrun. Yes, Athrun is a more experienced pilot, but LL/Ryan was expecting the colony to burst, so unlike the ZAFT red-coat, the de-aged man wasn't surprised or shocked.**

 **And of course, just like Astraea Nemesis has shown in his _"Eyes in Seed"_ , which I _HIGHLY_** **recommend, GN Drive-powered Gundams are just better than the battery MS of SEED, although n my opinion, the difference is a bit bigger than what he showed, not by much, but enough to let a relatively fresh Natural and a AI to keep the Aegis at bay, especially in a clutter of asteroids, where the Aegis' MA mode wouldn't be of much use.**

* * *

 _ **Questions of the Chapter:**_

 **Q1:** What non-C.E-era Mobile Suit would you have picked to pilot in this situation?

 **Q2:** What chick do you want me to pair with LL/Ryan? Just asking, because I personally don't have any solid pick.

 **Q3:** Do you know any good online Mecha games?


	9. Gundam Sniped SEED Chapter 2

**AN: How're you doing, my dear readers? Enjoying your Holiday traditions, perhaps watching 14 Servants fighting in a bloody battle, or just chillaxin'. But yeah, the next chapter for Divergent Strife is still incomplete, and Quincy DxD's is still in mere planning stages, but fear not, I have something else to replace that.**

"Speech"

 _'Thought'_

 **[System Message]**

 _ **[Haro! Haro!]**_

 _«"Friendly/Neutral comm_ _"»_

 ** _«"Enemy Open comm_ _"»_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.**

* * *

As Lyle waited in the empty room, his hands cuffed to the table, a similar set-up on his legs, his chains jingling from the near-constant shaking of his right knee, he couldn't help but be anxious, yet bored. Sure, he knew what the name of the game here was; Put the unknown into isolation to spook them out while you observed them, and tried digging up info about them, but boy howdy, that shit was _boring_!

Hell, he couldn't even scratch the small itch on his neck, his messy mop of dark brown hair floating slightly from the lack of Gravity, his helmet lying on the table before him. And looking at it, he could see that it was the Season 2-design of Gundam Meister helmets, and from the reflection of its visor, he could also see that he seemed to have gotten younger, and also lost his goatee, which really irked the dimensionally displaced young man.

What? He had spent a good long while cultivating that thing, so of course he was pissed that it was gone.

"Oi, you folks mind cutting it with these little mind-games? I'm not some punk you can intimidate," He said out-loud, all-too-aware that he was probably being monitored by some hidden cameras.

* * *

And it wasn't long after that the door to this interrogation room opened up, and Lt. Murrue Ramius and Lt. Mu La Flaga walked in, the Hawk of Endymion still in his purple flight suit, albeit his collar was open, while the acting captain was in her white officer's uniform, marking her as a part of the Atlantic Federation part of the Earth Alliance.

As they both looked at him, Lyle could see bits of grief and sadness on Murrue's face, small tinges of pity on Mu's, albeit there was also some other emotions on the MA Pilot's mind, but Lyle wasn't sure what. Could've been fear about whether or not there were more suits like his Cherudim, or questions about how he was able to pilot a Mobile Suit, where he got it, and why he was here, he didn't know, let alone care all that much.

The only questions that mattered to him were whether or not the MS he had brought aboard would buy him enough leeway to not spend his trip to earth in a cell, and what would they do with his Gundam? Would they let him keep it _**(Unlikely, the cynical part him said)**_ , or would they confiscate it from him, and hand it over to the Atlantic Feddies, or rather, LOGOS' hand-puppet's hand-puppet?

But, those would have to be questions for later, as both of them steeled their expressions, Murrue taking the seat across from Lyle, while Mu simply leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. Ah, so it would be a good cop, bad cop scenario, one acting like a stern officer who was going to jail him, while the other would be trying to offer him a gilded cage, dressed up as an act of kindness. A rather interesting ploy, the only problem with that were that not only had their previous chat already established their roles, Murrue as a strict-ish Acting captain of the ship, while Mu was the wise-cracking pilot with a heart of gold.

And he knew that Murrue, despite her rank, was more of an engineer than a soldier, so she'd be less suited for such a role. Oh sure, she might act all tough, maybe pull a gun on him like she did with Kira and his friends, but he knew that she didn't kill civilians, and that he'd be more valuable to her, and the Earth Alliance alive, if only as someone who could pilot a Mobile Suit.

But still, might as well see how this would play out.

"Mr. Lawton, while I thank you for recovering the Aegis, I do have questions I want answered," Murrue spoke, her tone strict and firm, like a typical interrogator.

Lyle nodded. "Ask away, Ma'am."

"First off: where did you come from?"

"Earth. And before you ask, I'm a Natural, if you want to use labels like that." At his answer, Lyle saw both Military officers visibly react, Murrue's eyes widening in surprise, while Mu simply raised a questioning eyebrow at the answer, no doubt suspicious.

"Very well, and where did you get that Mobile Suit?" Murrue asked, deciding to save her questions about how the boy before her was able to pilot a Mobile Suit, despite claiming to be a Natural. Just looking at the machine parked in the Archangel's hangar, she could tell that it was more advanced than the G-Weapons, or anything ZAFT had deployed, and she'd like to make sure that the technology behind that Mobile Suit wasn't in the hands of some terrorist organization, or war-mongerers. And of course, there was that small part of her that was saying that if the Earth Forces were to gain access to this technology, this war could come to an end all the sooner, before more lives would be thrown away.

"...I'm afraid I can't tell you anything about my Gundam. Not yet anyway." While sure, he knew that neither of the people before him would do anything bad with the tech on his machine, the same couldn't be said for their superiors… not to mention that he hadn't exactly come up with a good excuse yet. He couldn't use ZAFT, since the moment it became clear that they weren't going to be deploying any machine with the tech his Gundam had, then he'd be fucked, even ignoring the more than passing resemblance Cherudim Noire had to the GAT-X-series Gundams.

And he couldn't say Orb either, because then the Earth Forces would be butt-hurt about Orb skimping out on the good tech, giving them reasons to attack the so-called Neutral nation way before the mook Astrays and their pilots were anywhere near combat-ready.

"Alright, so moving away from your suit, how exactly did you come across the Aegis? Last I knew, it was stolen by some ZAFT red-coats," Mu asked, cutting in. The questions about the kid's Mobile Suit, or _Gundam_ as he called it could come later.

"Well, I saw it and three GINNs heading towards Heliopolis, the Mass-Produced units carrying heavy weapons," Lyle answered, trying to curry some good will with the Alliance soldiers, "and letting them enter the colony would've been bad, I got into position, picked my target, and then…" He trailed off, raising a shackled hand as high as he could, and pantomimed a gun firing.

"And I presume that the damaged GINN was your handiwork?" Murrue asked, drawing Lyle's attention back to her, the brunette engineer doing her best to ignore the calm, almost playful way the boy before her, who couldn't have been more than 18, possibly 17 years old, talked about murder. Though to be fair, she wasn't angry about the help, but she was more than perturbed at the thought of a minor fighting on the front-lines, especially if said minor was seemingly comfortable with killing.

"Yeah, I didn't have the time to align my shot properly," Lyle admitted, before he sighed, "And because of that, you guys got stuck with two heavily armed GINNs, and the colony got destroyed..." he frowned, trying to fish for info about how exactly Heliopolis still got damaged to the point it did. One half-dead GINN should not have been a big enough of a problem for the Archangel to take care of, especially if Miguel still gunned for Kira.

…Not that he didn't mourn the tragedy, it was just that it was all according to how things originally went, and sure, he was already causing changes, but no reason to put in so much effort to save a colony that had already evacuated its inhabitants to lifeboats.

"Don't take it too hard kid, you still did a good job, cutting their numbers in half," Mu said, walking over and patting Lyle on the shoulder.

Clearing her throat, Murrue continued with her questions." So then, you engaged the Aegis in combat, is that correct?"

Lyle nodded. "In the debris field, it couldn't utilize its Mobile Armor mode, and eventually, I was able to capture it," he explained, uncaring of the fact that he revealed that he knew of the Aegis' transformable capabilities. After all, he had an idea on how to explain away the advanced tech of his Gundam, and at the same time, reveal some of the distortions in this world.

"And I thank you for that, and for bringing us the container," From what Mr. Murdoch had told her, the container had all the necessary parts for a new Mobile Suit, just needing to be assembled. "however, what do you plan to do now?" The Acting Captain asked.

Lyle simply leaned back in his chair. "Well, I need to get to Earth, so I was thinking of offering my help in protecting this ship." After all, the majority of the action would be on Earth, as were potential allies, and targets that needed to be eliminated. Partnering up with the Archangel would simply be logical, not only for getting to Earth, but also for making sure that nothing changed _too_ drastically.

Murrue and Mu looked at each other, before Murrue looked back at Lyle. "What makes you think that we'll allow someone we don't know or trust to pilot a highly advanced Mobile Suit?"

"Well, to be fair, Captain, he did help us out, and if he really was dangerous, he could've just attacked us," Mu pointed out.

Lyle sighed, smirking on the inside as he prepared to put his plan into motion. "Look, while I can't tell you everything, I can tell you who made my Gundam, and what I plan to do on Earth. Would that get your trust?" he asked, throwing out the proverbial bait, waiting for the oh-so-loyal Alliance Soldiers to bite.

"Go on..."

"Well, there's this group calling itself LOGOS, consisting of multiple weapon manufacturing companies, and their goal is to keep the war going, like a bunch of vultures gorging themselves on the suffering and deaths caused by this war." After all, what good were weapons if there was nobody to use them on? "And my Gundam is, or rather, _was_ meant to be the new golden goose they'd be selling to both sides."

"And that's why your Mobile Suit looks so similar to the G-Weapons?" If this organization really existed, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they also had affiliations with the G-Project, and it would certainly explain how ZAFT found out about the project.

"They have entrenched themselves onto _all_ sides, pushing things along to keep this war going," Lyle nodded. Although on the ZAFT side, they didn't really need anyone to keep the war effort going, what with Patrick Zala raving about Coordinator Superiority. "And one of their more useful hand-puppets is Blue Cosmos, those racist genocidal fucks killing anyone who doesn't buy into their shite." Realizing how emotional he was getting, Lyle took a deep breath before continuing. It wouldn't do him any good to get too emotional and accidentally reveal something that he shouldn't, like the Cyclops system underneath the Alaska base.

"But yeah, they took a few designs from the G-Project, adding in some experimental tech to make their machines superior to the GAT-X-series," he lied through his teeth. "I was one of their test pilots, chosen to pilot the Cherudim, one of the 4 Gundams they had."

"So there's three more of those things out there?" Mu asked, not looking forward to the prospect of fighting against a machine that not only was packing future-tech like those wireless DRAGOONs, but also couldn't be sensed on any sensors.

Lyle shook his head. "No, considering I shot down the others, and then destroyed the lab, which was a closed system in of itself." Boy howdy he was glad that he had Haro, as the purple little ball of wonders could quite easily serve as proof about the project, if it still had the GN Drive's blueprints.

"...So the real reason you were near Heliopolis was to stop the theft?" Murrue asked, Lyle nodding with a downcast gaze, not only selling the image of sadness, but also hiding the smile that was threatening to burst out.

"And the reason you're going to Earth is to get revenge or something?" Mu asked.

Raising his head up, Lyle fought down the urge to smile. "Well, wouldn't you want to make the fuckers who dragged you away from your peaceful life, forcing you into their war machine, pay?" he asked, although he was referencing to whatever Random Omnipotent Bastard _ **(or Bitch)**_ who put him in his current situation.

"But no, even if I knew where they were, which I don't." He only faintly remembered the names of the revealed LOGOS members, aside from Lord Djibril, as forgetting that annoying git wasn't possible. "I feel like putting this machine in the hands of pacifists is a much better way of sticking it to those vultures." And the fact that the pacifists he had in mind were also, arguably, the most technologically advanced faction on earth, considering that it was them who designed and actually built the Archangel and the GAT-X Gundams.

Plus, the technology behind the GN Drives would go to good use with the Athha family in charge.

"Well, Lyle, I think we can work something out," Murrue began, a curious smile spreading across Lyle's lips, waiting to hear the brunette's terms, "The Earth Alliance does employ Mercenaries from time to time, and in your case, you would be given the Rank of an Ensign, for the duration of your time of working with us," she explained.

"And the duration of this _"Contract"_ would be…?"

"At least until we arrive on Earth." And by that time, she hoped that he would trust them enough to enlist properly, or at least to keep his weapons aimed away from EA forces.

"Alright then, we have a deal." Lyle nodded, seeing nothing wrong with the terms. After all, the terms didn't specify _what part_ of the blue planet they'd have to land on, so if he was being a real dickhead, he could just bail the moment the ship broke through the atmosphere. But no, he'd at least wait until Orb, assuming that the Archangel would still be knocked off-course, instead of actually heading straight for their intended location.

In which case, he'd bail before they even made it to port.

"But, ah, I do need to go and link Cherudim to the ship's comm systems. Can't exactly be using non-encrypted comms, now can we?"

* * *

"Your thoughts, Lieutenant?" Murrue asked as the guards led Lyle towards the MS hangar.

"...He was telling half-truths, but the stuff he said about LOGOS, that wasn't a lie." Some of his words ringed a bit hollow, but when he talked about LOGOS, and how he was practically dragged into the cockpit of his Gundam were too emotional to be some lies.

"I see..." Murrue said, a scowl on her lips.

* * *

As Lyle, followed by his two escorts, entered the MS hangar, having stashed his helmet into one of the lockers in the locker room, which had a rather nice view into the hangar,, he was quite pleased to see the Strike in its berth, dull grey and lifeless with its PS Armor turned off. He also noted the cylindrical lifeboat laying on the hangar floor, crewmen helping people climb out of it.

Seeing that there wasn't a red-haired little twat, nor Kira Yamato near the lifeboat, Lyle kicked off from the doorway, noting the odd feeling of moving through a zero-g area. _'Well, I suppose I'll have to find him myself.'_ It was quite likely that the brown-haired Coordinator was talking with his Heliopolis friends, or considering that he had to have seen the Aegis, trying to go and talk with Athrun, or hell, he might also be looking for him, if the technicians here said that he had been the one who brought the stolen Gundam aboard.

Looking back towards his Gundam, he saw a number of technicians looking at it, inspecting it, and failing to open the cockpit.

Seeing him approach, the main mechanic, a tan, burly man with blue hair in an orange uniform turned to address him. "So, you're the Pilot of this one?" the man asked, extending his arms out to halt Lyle's momentum, the mechanic more than a little surprised by how young the boy inside of a pilot suit looked.

Geez, what is with kids these days all wounding up inside of advanced Mobile Suits? Kids like them should be worrying about test papers and picking up chicks, _**(or boys, he didn't judge.)**_ not fighting in a damn war. Sure, from what he had heard, the Strike's pilot had been forced to pilot it due to re-writing the OS to the point that Naturals couldn't pilot it, but what about this kid?

"Yep, Lyle Lawton, Pilot of Gundam Cherudim Noire." Lyle took the mechanic's hand, letting go as his feet made contact with the cold metal of the Mobile Suit.

"Kojiro Murdoch, Chief Mechanic of the Archangel," the gruff mechanic introduced himself, before looking at the head of the Machine he and his crew had been ins-well, trying to inspect, since with the cockpit locked, they could only inspect the outer parts of the mysterious Mobile Suit, along with any exposed parts.

Not that they didn't find anything. They found some stuff alright, but none of them really made sense.

For one, there wasn't any kind of charge port on the machine, which was something that _all_ Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors had.

And considering the lack of any physical ammo on the weapons of the machine, this Mobile Suit had to have some massive power requirements for all the beams it'd be shooting off. And sure, there seemed to be axes, with triggers on their handles, attached to it's back, although he couldn't help but question what use they'd be against a beam saber.

"Well, sorry if I brought you guys more work." Looking down at the cockpit hatch, he could see more than a few scratch marks, and other signs of the Mechanics attempting to force their way into the Gundam.

Seeing where Lyle was looking, Murdoch coughed a bit. "The manual release wasn't working, so we tried opening the cockpit ourselves," he admitted, internally fuming as he remembered how no matter what they did, the hatch wouldn't budge. Hell, he was pretty sure that all they did was scuff up the paint-job, despite taking a freakin' torch to the hatch.

"But ah, don't worry, your little gifts ought to be useful in the long run." In all honesty, the Aegis was pretty much in tip-top shape, aside from the small signs of melting on its shield, which was just another thing to be added to the mental Nonsense folder that he had started associating with the Noire and everything that machine did.

Although, he couldn't help but be more than a bit worried about the dis-assembled Mobile Suit that had been in that container. The burnt orange-accented parts were of similar build to the Strike, yet different, including the head unit parts, which had a more profound V-Fin.

Well, at least that confirmed his theories about why Morgenroete had accepted EA's request to develop and build Mobile Suits.

"That's good to hear," Lyle said, crouching down to the manual release hatch. Looking at it, he couldn't see any recognition-type tech, so his best guess as to why the Archangel's mechanic crew had been unable to open it was due to Haro keeping it locked, keeping an eye on things via sensors placed all around the Gundam's Frame.

"Anyway, I came here to link Cherudim to the ship's comm systems, y'know, in case we get into a fight." And unless he remembered wrong, the Le Creuset team would be attacking the Archangel before the EA ship made it to the Artemis base.

Murdoch nodded. "Yeah, probably a good call," he said, eyebrow twitching in small annoyance as the cockpit hatch opened with a smooth hiss, closing after its young pilot entered. In fact, the scuffed up hatch looked a bit cleaner than what it was before the kid opened it up, as if the damn machine was taunting.

Already feeling a headache coming, Murdoch kicked off from the darkly-colored Gundam. Since booze wasn't available, let alone advised in their current situation, he might as well get started on that project hawk-boy suggested.

* * *

 _ **[How'd it go?]**_ Haro asked as Ryan plopped down onto the seat, scratching the itch that had been bugging him.

" _Haah_ … pretty good, we got ourselves a ride to Earth, which holds some possible allies for us," he answered, feeling relieved as the itch faded away.

"Haro, mind connecting to the Archangel's Comm system? And if possible, also try tap-wiring them." It would be quite troublesome if they managed to set up some sort of a trap for him. Plus, it'd be at least some juicy info for him to mull over.

 _ **[Roger Roger!]**_ The purple ball spun around in its port as it went about its task.

In all honesty, it was rather easy to do, in theory, just breach the ship's communications system, hack the encryptions, and then set the feed to also be broadcasted into the cockpit. If they were attempting this at a moment when they weren't supposed to be sending data to them, then the Archangel's crew would have probably noticed it, but with the current situation, the crew being more focused on keeping an eye out for enemy vessels, a harmless infiltration like this would slip by rather well.

 _ **[We have access! We have access!]**_ Haro announced, its red slanted eyes making a rather interesting contrast with the almost child-like happy tone of the machine.

"Thanks, and if possible, can you do an internal check-up, and search the Cherudim's systems for something called _"_ _Trans-Am_ _"_?" While yeah, the Cherudim should be more than powerful enough to deal with the energy pack-powered Mobile Suits, he'd rather have some more _"_ _oomph_ _"_ to his blows, if needed, rather than need it and not have it.

 _ **[Trans-Am?]**_ Haro questioned.

"It's a booster system that removes the GN Drive's limiters, tripling the Gundam's speed and power, something that old man Aeolia left in the original GN Drives," Ryan explained.

"If you do find it, _don't_ turn it on." he clarified. He'd rather keep Haro's existence a secret, for as long as he could, as unlike the GP-Base that Adam from Nemesis Astraea's fic, his _"_ _terminal_ _"_ was a tad too big for him to carry around inconspicuously, and well, there was also the issue of the Archangel's crew making a connection between Lacus' pink Haro, and his CB-Haro.

 _ **[Beginning Search! Beginning Search!]**_ Haro announced, as it started going through the different files within the Cherudim's mainframe.

"Thanks, buddy," Ryan said, before looking up as someone knocked on the cockpit hatch. "Gotta go before they get suspicious," he said, opening the cockpit and jumping out, coming face to face with Murdoch. "Ya need me for something?" Lyle asked, making sure to block the mechanic's view of the cockpit.

"Well, me and my crew need to do an inspection on your machine, and we can't do that with everything locked," Murdoch explained.

"I see," Lyle nodded, exiting the cockpit, the hatch closing soon after. "You don't need to do anything, I activated the check-up system while I was in there," he fibbed, before crossing his arms. "…Or were you worried about something like say, a bomb?" he asked.

Murdoch sighed, nodding. "Yeah, some of the guys had that thought," he admitted, looking off towards the group of mechanics around the container Lyle and Athrun had brought in.

"Well, don't worry, I have no intention of blowing this ship up." Least of all in space, where even the smallest leak in a space ship was a problem.

Walking over to the edge of Cherudim's armor, just as he was about to jump off, Lyle snapped his fingers.

"Actually, there is something you can help me with," he said, turning around to look at Murdoch.

* * *

 **[Archangel's Brig...]**

An awkward silence and tension hung in the air as two childhood friends stood, or in Athrun's case, sat across from one another, the bars of a brig cell separating them. Neither of the two knew what to say, and who could blame them? Their first meeting in years had been Athrun and his fellow ZAFT Soldiers attacking a colony, killing numerous factory workers, and stealing four out of the five, or as it would seem, six prototype Mobile Suits, forcing the brown-haired boy, Kira, to pilot the fifth one.

"…I-It's good to see you, Athrun…" Kira finally said, surprising Athrun with the all-in-all, casual greeting, the Coordinator having expected a vastly different start from his friend.

Regardless, a somber smile made its way onto Athrun's face as he nodded. "Yeah, although I wish it was under better circumstances…" He lamented, wondering what the heck Kira was doing with these Naturals? Sure, he had been pushed into the G-Weapon's cockpit by that woman, but shouldn't he have been sent to a shelter, or did the Earth Alliance soldiers somehow force him to stay aboard?

"So you were ordered to attack Heliopolis, and steal those Mobile Suits?"

"Yes, we had orders to infiltrate Morgenroete and steal the G-Weapons, Heliopolis itself wasn't our target," Athrun corrected. "A friend of mine, Rusty, was assigned to steal the one you're piloting now." In a rather grim way, it was funny, a friend of his died, failing to obtain the Strike, only for another friend of his to be pushed into it.

"O-oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Kira looked down, wondering if the other GINN pilots he had… were close friends with Athrun. That was the thing about wars where friends were stuck on the opposing sides, wasn't it?

However, that didn't mean that he could ignore what ZAFT had done, the image of the crumbling colony, which he had called home for so long, still fresh in his mind.

Clenching his fists tight, Kira looked Athrun straight in the eyes. "Then why did you continue to attack Heliopolis? You already had FOUR machines, you could've left us all ALONE!" In his emotional state, the young brown-haired Coordinator didn't notice how he raised his volume and shouted. If he had been a bit calmer, the logical side of him would have pointed out that the Archangel wasn't something ZAFT could simply ignore, nor was the Strike, considering that its different packs would make for a rather cost-effective mass-production base.

However, that logic was buried underneath the avalanche of grief, anger and sadness.

"But no, because of ZAFT, countless people lost their homes, me and my friends are stuck on a battleship,, and I had to _KILL_ people!" At this point, Kira's shoulders were shaking, tears threatening to break out, his voice cracked as he was just unloading all his grief out to before his friend.

"Kira…" Athrun was honestly at a momentary loss for words. Originally, he had planned on trying to convince his friend to take the Strike, and join ZAFT, but looking at his friend, the blue-haired young man only felt pity, and more than a small amount of empathy. While he wasn't a shrink, he could tell that his friend was laying his emotions bare, and what kind of a friend would he be if he tried to manipulate him when he was in this kind of state?

And so, he had to… play the role of a therapist and help Kira deal with his grief… oh god…

Well, on the bright side, there was no way he could make things worse… at least not one he could think of…

Alright, here it goes.

"I… I can't defend the decision to bring heavy weapons into Heliopolis," They could have, theoretically speaking, just waited for the Legged ship to exit the colony, although that would have given them the time to fully supply themselves. "But the Earth Alliance and Orb are equally at fault, the former for approaching Orb to make weapons for them," and no doubt intimidating them to do so, although he had a sneaking suspicion that Orb had taken the opportunity to also produce Mobile Suits of their own, if that container that he had helped pushed along was any indication.

"A-And I can't blame you for your actions." After all, in Kira's shoes, given the choice to either pilot a Mobile Suit, or letting his friends getting killed, Athrun would have jumped into the piloting seat head-first. And well, with Kira's relative in-experience with Mobile Suits, up against trained soldiers, it would be unfair of him to be angry at him for not going for disabling attacks.

"So if you have to go out there, then just focus on keeping yourself and your friends alive," Athrun said, cracking a small smile as he continued. "My teammates won't go easy on you." Yzak certainly wouldn't, and neither would Dearka, providing the silver-haired Red Coat supporting fire.

"Although, you might not have to fight, with that Mobile Suit on board," Athrun's words caused Kira's eyes hope to gain a bit more light, his expression growing a bit more hopeful. Seeing the expression on Kira's face, Athrun sighed, sitting down onto the bed of his cell, before he began explaining.

* * *

 **[One conversation later...]**

As Kira exited the brig, he stopped as he saw a guy, around his age, in a black pilot suit, which he knew wasn't standard issue for either ZAFT or the EA, leaning against the wall. Taking into consideration the alien design of the suit, and the uneasy looks the guards were giving him, Kira felt safe in assuming that the guy was the pilot of that Mobile Suit that had fought against Athrun.

"Had a proper chat with our ZAFT friend, I presume?" The messy-haired teen asked, looking at Kira with an expression of curiosity and something else that Kira couldn't place his finger on. It certainly wasn't dislike, not if his tone was any indication.

"Um, yeah," Kira nodded, caught off-guard by the question.

"Well, that's good to hear, won't pry into what you two talked about," the pilot smiled, walking over to Kira. "Lyle Lawton, pilot of the Cherudim Noire, and depending on how things go, your long-range support in fights," he said, offering his hand for a shake.

"Kira Yamato, pilot of the Strike, at least for now," Kira shook the offered hand, introducing himself in kind.

Lyle visibly winced, before sighing. "Yeaah, about that…" Lyle looked at the two guardsmen, one of whom was glaring at him and Kira, suspicion clear in his eyes. Looking back at Kira, Lyle motioned the young coordinator to follow.

Glancing at the guards, Kira followed the fellow pilot.

* * *

As the two rounded the corner, Lyle began his little play.

"Look, I don't know you, but let me guess, you think that as soon as we reach an Earth Alliance base, you're free to go?" he asked, starting with a bit of info gathering. Getting a feel of Kira's current mental state would help with further fibs.

Kira shook his head, knowing that it wouldn't be so easy. "No, I'd at least need to change the OS back to how it was." Possibly with some small clean-up, but not to the point that Naturals wouldn't be able to pilot the Strike.

Lyle nodded, seeing that Kira wasn't _completely_ naive. "While that is likely, I doubt that they'd be willing to let you go so easily," Chances are, they'd claim that he had enlisted while on board the ship, and if they decided to hold Athrun, or any of Kira's friends at the proverbial gunpoint, the lad was likely to go along with the lie.

"After all, even with the original OS, the original pilots had trouble moving the machines, let alone fight in them,"

"Then, if I write a functioning OS for them, they'd have to let me go," Kira pointed out, a part of his mind already working on how to dumb down the Strike's current OS to levels that the Earth Alliance soldiers could work with it. If Mr. Murdoch managed to complete the simulator he had seen the mechanics building in the second hangar, and with Mr. Flaga as a test pilot to provide feedback, it shouldn't be too difficult…

Lyle hummed, seeing Kira's point. Too bad the so-called _"Ultimate"_ Coordinator had missed a few little details. "Yeah, while that might work, you'd have to be working on the OS non-stop, and I'm afraid that you'll be needed in the Strike," looking over his shoulder, Lyle could see Kira blink in confusion.

"But why? You're capable of fighting, aren't you?" the purple-eyed boy asked, getting a bit tense. If what Athrun had told him was correct, then Lyle's Mobile Suit had no problems powering the numerous beam weapons it had, including those floating gun pods. With that kind of firepower, he'd be able to at least scare off any ZAFT forces that came for the ship.

"Oh yeah, my Cherudim's quite the advanced suit, doesn't have the power limitations current machines have," Lyle admitted with a casual shrug. Wouldn't do him any good to hide it, as that was bound to become obvious after his Cherudim would be deployed to protect the Archangel, so he might as well be partially open about his suit's superior power supply.

"But then-"

" _However_ , just cause I'm on board, don't think you can just kick back, and let me and Mu handle the fighting," Lyle interjected, coming to a halt near the living quarters, full of refugees. "See, my Cherudim is a Sniper unit, so we'll still need you in the Strike, as I can't handle all of the ZAFT machines on my own," he explained.

Oh sure, the Noire's GN Pistols could double as axes, but he wasn't the Melee sort, especially against a Pilot with actual training and enhanced specs. And yeah, maybe the Shield Bits could keep people out of Melee range, and maybe a good shot from his GN Rifle could take out a Seed Mobile Suit, or even a battleship, but he wasn't about to tell Kira that. Sure, it might be a tad heartless, making the lad fight even though he's not necessary, but he wasn't about to let such a prize bull to simply run off.

"Look, if it's that you don't want to kill people, then that's fine, just disable their machines," Even though in his opinion, enlisted Soldiers, and their families should be ready for the casualties of war. "But you're still needed in protecting the ship, and _them_ ," Lyle slightly nudged his head towards the assorted refugees. Sure, call him an utter bastard, but hey, wouldn't be the first time he tugged at emotional heartstrings to get his way, and certainly wouldn't be the last.

Besides, if things went well, those refugees wouldn't get shot down by a certain, angry, silver-haired Coordinator.

"We're the only two people on this ship capable of piloting Mobile Suits," at least with the Natural-Use OS being the way it is. "So at least until we reach the Lunar base, you'll have to fight as well," Lyle stated, putting on an a look of pity that wasn't completely fake. Oh sure, while he did feel sorry for the lad, and considering his own situation, a great deal of empathy, but if he had his way, he'd still drag the Coordinator into war, or rather, convince him that not pussying out was the right thing to do.

Kira's shoulders shook as he listened to Lyle talk, the charcoal-eyed young man's words hammering at his mind as he looked at the refugees within the mess hall, including a small girl, who couldn't have been any older than 6.

However, just before Kira could reply, a shout of "Hey Kira!" rang out from behind Lyle, as a group of five civilians approached the two pilots.

* * *

' _Tch, talk about bad timing._ _'_ As the civilians, Kira's friends, his mind corrected, spotted Lyle, or more specifically, his pilot suit, the lying pilot could see all kinds of emotion, mostly surprise, confusion, suspicion, and in Flay's case, fear, utter and total fear, like that of a person who came across a wild animal, one that could easily tear them apart.

"W-Why is a _Coordinator_ aboard this ship?" Flay questioned in an accusing, yet fearful tone. Judging by the slight flinch from Kira, and Flay's… fuck it, no sugarcoating, racist comment, Lyle felt somewhat safe in assuming that Kira's Coordinator Status hadn't been revealed yet.

Lyle frowned at the words, looking at Flay with a bored expression. Massaging his temples, he sighed, before putting on a polite smile, but one that practically anyone who had to deal with a lot of annoying people on a daily basis. "I'm afraid you're quite misguided in calling me a Coordinator," he said, trying his best to keep his cool, even though there were but a few people in the Cosmic Era that pissed him off more than Flay Allister did.

But, she would be important in the long run, both in possibly keeping Kira aboard the Archangel, and making sure that ZAFT couldn't just roll over the EA troops with the GENESIS weapon. And besides, the racist little daddy's girl hadn't done anything yet, so he'd at least wait until she fucked up.

"And secondly, even if I were a Coordinator, it's not like the Earth Alliance doesn't employ them when needed," Lyle added. After all, Coordinators helped in designing the Mobile Suits for the EA military, and the AF fuck-bois had their own little Coordinators. Oh sure, it was _Orb_ Coordinators that did it, and the Combat Coordinators were little more than wind-up soldiers who instead of needing their key turned, needed their little drugs, but still, he was technically right.

But still, so much for the so-called Blue and _"_ _Pure_ _"_ world.

"Wait, you're _not_ a Coordinator?" Kira asked,

"Nope, I just have a lot of experience with my suit." And a robot co-pilot to help him out.

Before any other questions could be asked, Lyle took a few steps, stopping as he stepped next to Kira. "But, yeah, Kira, keep in mind what we talked about, will ya?" he patted him on the shoulder before walking away, a smile on his face as he took a small peek back towards the group, and saw the assorted Naturals looking at Kira with questioning stares.

 _'Well, that was one way to get the ball rolling,'_ he thought as he kept walking away.

* * *

 **AN: So, how was it? I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **But yeah, if people really like this, I wouldn't mind making this an active series, although I do have other ideas in my head that I need to exhale from there.**

 **Ciao, happy holidays to one and all.**

 **...**

 **...**

 **Oh, but there is one last thing, something I kinda just scribbled on cold, boring nights when I had nothing better on my mind:**

 **WARNING, THIS IS GOING TO BE SOME EXPLICIT CONTENT! SKIP TO THE QUESTIONS BELOW IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN THE FOLLOWING:**

 **-GENDER BENDING**

 **-FUTA**

 **-BLACKMAILING**

 **SMUT SCENE: START**

"C'mon, give it a lick, I'm sure you'll _**love**_ the taste." Meryl winked, thrusting her hips, and the erect and leaky member dangling from it towards _'s face, who leaned his/her head away from the freak of nature.

"EW! NO! JUST NO! What the fuck makes you think I'll suck that…thing!" _ shouted, backing away from the futanari, rising up on her shaky feet, cradling herself as he felt the chilly wind brushing along her smooth skin, her erect nipples pressing against the hairless arms of the female body.

Meryl simply pouted, crossing her arms underneath her breasts, pushing the melon-sized mammaries together, making their presence even more known, and if it were not for the half-a-meter long piece of meat hanging from her crotch, she would've been the definition of the sexy busty blonde stereotype. "We~ll, I _did_ save you from that beastie over there," she motioned to the pulverized remains of the monster that had put _ in his current state. "so really, you owe me one, and I _rea~lly_ need a BJ." The schoolgirl shuddered with need, pre-cum leaking from her aching 50 cm-long slab of meat.

"Plus, y'know, you _need_ the antidote."

"Well, like, the thing with plant-girl monsters is, like, they turn people into monsters," she explained, before pulling out a blue vial of some sorts, with a picture of a flower with the female sex symbol on it, crossed out. "And well, I dunno all that technical stuff about it, but I totes know that the first symptom is green skin, like that," she said pointing at _, who upon looking at their arm, saw the pale skin gaining a green tint to it, his hand already a pale green, like the skin of the monster Meryl had already slain.

Her skin paling, _ looked at Meryl, or more specifically the vial. He had already been turned from a _**chubby**_ man to a, well, she hadn't gotten a good look at his current self, but from what little he had seen, unless she had butt-ugly face, he felt safe in saying that were he not the sod _within_ said body, she would've been on his mind during some lonely nights.

B-But the point was, he wasn't going to be taking any chances! "THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? Gimme the antidote, before I transform!" _ shouted, reaching his shaky hand towards the vial.

Meryl on the other hand, simply bobbed her head from side to side, obviously thinking of something. Then, apparently as if she reached a revelation of some kind, she smiled at _ . "Oh! Sure, I'll give you the antidote," However, right after that cheery tone, she popped open the cork of the vial, and before _ could do anything, the futa had poured half of the vial onto her meat rod, giving it a blue, glowing sheen.

"So, sweetie, here's how it's going to go," Meryl, said as she began sauntering towards _, whose knees had already given out from fear and shock. "You still got some _loads_ of time before you turn all green and icky, and I _really_ need this,"

"…I-I a-GUMPF?!" _ barely got a word out before Meryl stuffed her girl-cock into the opening, her arms grabbing onto _'s brown unkempt hair, preventing the transformee from spitting the crime of nature out, the futanari simply pushing it in deeper, despite _'s flailing arms, and attempts to get up.

"Words of advice, breath through the nose," Meryl advised, slowing down to allow _ to get her bearings, the Futa slowly working more and more of her length down _'s throat, making sure to rub _all_ of the elixir on the inside of the velvety smooth hole.

'J-Just think of it as a Popsicle, a medicine-covered, thick, veiny, completely **normal** Popsicle…' _ thought to herself, closing her eyes as she took Meryl's advice and flicked her tongue all over the medicine-covered rod, trying to make himself ignore the fucked up reality of the situation.

"Woh-ho ho hoo, I'm real jealous of the boyfriend you practiced on." the blonde remarked as she watched more than half of her length sheathing itself into the mouth of the brunette, those plump, perfectly kissable lips sucking on her dick like a vacuum cleaner, trying to drink in as much of the blue liquid coating it.

But Meryl's words went ignored as _ was busy blocking out everything but the taste of the medicine he _needed_ as the pace picked up a little, causing _'s pert, supple and firm breasts to sway and bounce, the motion sending alien signal's to _'s male brain. The feeling wasn't bad, per say, just weird, and irregular, the suddenness causing her to let out a stifled moan, the vibrations causing the rod to twitch, which served to remind _ of the true nature of the thing she was sucking so fervently.

The male part of _'s subconscious mind was telling him to take the chance, spit out that _**thing**_ , grab the elixir, drink it and run the fuck away. However, the survivalist part of her was pointing out that the hands that were currently caressing her long brown locks had turned the plant-girl to mush with a single punch, so trying to escape could result in them getting a similar smack.

" _So what, we should just let ourselves be a cocksleeve to this bitch?"_ the male part of his mind questioned, and if his mindscape had a conference room, his male half would've just slammed his fist onto the table, anger clear on his face.

Then the survivalist part of his brain would simply sigh, looking uncomfortable at the prospect. _"Trust me, I don't like out current situation either,"_ they would say, as another 10 centimeters were pushed down the body's throat, leaving behind a mixture of saliva, cum and the blue elixir they were doing this for.

 **SMUT SCENE: END!**

* * *

 _ **Questions of the Chapter:**_

 **Q1:** What would you lot say about a Fire Emblem Awakening/Fate SI fic, where the SI gets dropped into the field where Chrom and Co. meet Robin, the SI holding a Class Card containing the Lancer Servant, Hector?  
 **-Q1.5:** And then being forced into a Holy Grail War, fought by people using these Class Cards?

 **Q2:** Would you want this Grail War to be the regular 7-way jamboree, or the 7-VS-7 Great Grail War? What characters would you want to fight in the war, and of course, what Servant would they install.

Also, I already have in mind one specific Rider-Class, who'd be sure to get Hector riled up, considering how he got shanked by the nigh-invincible jack-ass.


	10. HuntikTales of the Abyss

**AN: AAAAAAAAAAGGH, I HAVE RETURNED... From the sick-bay, spent the last 4-5 days, sick, puking, sweating like a pig and generally speaking begging for someone to grab something blunt.**

 **Anyway, remember my first one-shot here? Y'know, the Huntik/HP one? Yeah, well, this is a Non-gamer edition that I was working on before I got sick, and this is also planned to be a crossover with Tales of the Abyss, so eeh... enjoy...**

"Speech"

 _'Thought'_

 _"Titan Bond"_

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything.**

* * *

Blinking as he regained consciousness, Roy could barely see a worn, ancient-looking brick roof, and rising up, he could see that the, well, attic was only lit by a ray of sunshine peering from a window on the roof, which was too high up for him to even attempt climbing.

Pausing as his left hand brushed against something, Roy turned his head, and saw a laptop bag. Unzipping it, he saw… well, what looked like a thick, black, metal laptop, that sorta seemed familiar to the young man, but it was only when he looked slightly left of the laptop that an audible gulp could be heard from him.

' _Ah, shite…'_ Roy thought, looking at the three pendants, Amulets, his mind corrected, laying on the black fabric of the bag. Two brown amulets with a ruby red gem laid into them, and a dark green one with an emerald green gem. Now, it might've been a while since he watched the show, but he did recognize that these amulets, and the black laptop, were from Huntik.

Alright, so, assuming that he wasn't dreaming, which he'd assume that he wasn't, then his current situation was likely because of a Random Omnipotent Bastard, or ROB for short. Patting himself down, Roy found that aside from his multi-tool, he had jack-shit.

Taking a deep breath, Roy hesitantly reached towards one of the amulets he recognized, a dark brown amulet that reminded Roy of a cockroach, or some other kind of insect. Which was fitting, considering the Titan within the Amulet.

As he touched the amulet, Roy flinched as he felt his entire body heat up, energy surging through it, a symbol of a glaring eye flashing in the gem before the surging feeling faded away.

"...Well, at least I have magic, it seems…" Or something else that made the Amulet react.

* * *

"Alright, let's see if this works… _ **Heed the call, Mindrone**_ _!_ " Holding up the dark brown amulet, Roy watched as the red gem shone brightly, a beam of light shooting out of it a meter or so ahead of him, the light forming a humanoid silhouette before breaking apart, revealing a humanoid insect with one big red eye, which swerved around the room, inspecting it, before it turned to look at Roy, an expecting glint in its eye.

" _Orders?"_

… Well, that'd be something weird to get used, having a voic-well, not even a voice, more like a mental pulse that just formed a voice. Boy howdy, Roy couldn't imagine how it'd feel like with multiple Titans out and about.

As Roy was about to issue orders, he paused as he saw, well, what was basically a translucent stat sheet name tag hanging in the air in front of his Titan.

 **/** **Swara-Titan Warrior** **\**  
 **Mindrone**

Alright, so he could see the stats of the Titans, although he was pretty damn sure that the in-show stats were just Attack and Defense. Curiously enough, no level, but still, he could worry about that later.

"Go out there and inspect the surrounding area," Roy ordered, pointing to the door as the holographic display of his Teknonomicon sparked to life, showing him what Mindrone was seeing.

The humanoid bug-like titan nodded, before it jumped towards the ceiling, before it started crawling forward, keeping its body close to the ceiling to lessen the chances of being detected, not that it would have a hard time with that, considering how poorly lit the entire place seemed to be, nothing but torches lighting the stony hallways.

As the Swara-Titan kept on crawling, the image on Roy's Teknonomicon showed him more of the same stone castle, with some paintings and suits of armor lining the halls, until the titan came to a halt as it reached a T-section. Through the Bond, Roy could feel the Mindrone's requests for direction as it looked towards both paths.

On the left, there were stairs, and on the right, there was a corner turning to the left.

" _Go to the right."_ In the stairs, the titan would be all that easier for the inhabitants of the castle to notice it, and he'd rather not risk the castle being inhabited by people that could actually _harm_ the titan. At this point, he was just scouting, no need to get into unnecessary fights.

Crawling forward, the Swara-Titan stopped as it spotted movement further down the hallway, the bug-like Titan's eye enlarging as the image zoomed onto a walking armor, the gaps making it clear that it wasn't just some guy in armor, in case the way the armored construct lumbered on, dragging its sword across the stone-cobbled floor.

" _Engage or Evade?"_

"Hmm…" Mindrone's optic blast might not be any good against the living armor, and since the golem seemed to be unaware of Mindrone, it was better to play it safe, rather than needlessly get into fights. But on the other hand, if the living suit of armor was heading towards his location, Mindrone would be too far away to help him.

"Trail it, and if it walks towards me, attack it," Roy ordered. If it came down to a fight, he'd rather have the opponent surrounded.

Nodding, Mindrone began trailing the armored construct, and is it did, Roy was able to get a better understanding of the living piece of metal. It's movements, while slow and lumbering, were done with no wasted motion. And it's sword, a beefy slab of metal about one and a half meter tall, and half a meter wide showed nothing but cosmetic damage, stains on the blade, scratches along the flat of the blade, but the edge of the blade was sturdy, and sharp, if the scratch it was leaving on the stones was any indication.

Although considering the creature's nature, it might be safe to assume that the sword was enchanted in some manner, protected from the ravages of time, either by an enchantment, or rune of some kind laid into the weapon, or something about its makeup.

With heavy, slumbering steps, the armor walked its path, and as it reached a T-junction, with Roy's own hiding place situated to the left of the construct, the creature stopped in its tracks.

And that was all that Roy needed to tell that his spot was known to the golem-like being, Mindrone blasting at the back of the armor, causing it to stumble forwards from the impact.

Roy kicked open the door he was hiding behind, gritting his teeth and hoping to any god, demon or any other being of higher power to listen.

 _'Please don't fuck me over.'_

"Alright, _**Cut them down,**_ _ **Redcap!**_ " Holding up the gauntlet-like amulet, Roy watched as the red light shot out of it, the pale-skinned goblin charging straight at the armored construct's back, the Swara-Titan's claws making deep gashes into the creature's back, not that the living suit of armor seemed hampered by the injury at all, swinging its buster sword towards the new attacker, the sword impacting the thick gauntlets of the visor-wearing Titan, the resulting impact of the 110,7 kilo goblin being slammed against the brick wall shaking dust and a few bricks loose.

" _MOTHERFUCKER!"_

With a roar and renewed vigor, Redcap dashed at the armored construct, the momentum and sudden impact toppling the living piece of armor. Seeing an opportunity, Mindrone let loose another blast, this time at the sword that was holding the massive sword, the blast turning the metal of the vambrace red-hot, said vambrace cleaved in twine by Redcap, who took relish in the current situation, emphasized by an upturning of lips.

With a roar, the pale goblin-like titan began carving into its prey with vigor and great speed, each slash gouging out a strip of metal, the armored construct helpless as it shuddered with each slash.

Looking down at his Teknonomicon, from Mindrone's perspective, he was able to see a glowing line of markings, no doubt runes of some sort, said rune situated just above where Redcap's initial attack had landed.

' _Well, no time like the present to fix past mistakes,'_ Roy thought to himself, before he turned to address the over-enthusiastic Titan currently tearing into the armored construct like a shark into raw, bloody piece of meat.

"Oi, Redca-" Roy paused as he saw the armored construct be torn apart, the breastplate falling apart into nice, clean slices. And looking from Mindrone's POV, the sigil, or rather, the remains of the it had stopped glowing

"Well, never mind then," he said, as Redcap grabbed the helmet of his fallen foe, and held it up in the air, belting out a shrill roar of victory, before it threw the helmet aside, and both Titans looked back towards Roy, expecting orders.

 **/** **Swara-Titan Warrior** **\**  
 **Redcap**

Picking himself up, Lyle walked towards the two Titans, keeping his Teknonomicon balanced on his left hand. "You, follow me," he said to the Redcap, which acknowledged the order, moving aside as Roy walked forward, and addressed his other Titan.

"Jump onto the ceiling, and stay 10 meters ahead of us, and act as my eyes," Since the residents of this castle seemed to have some method of knowing his location, if the way the armored construct had gone straight for his hiding place was any indication, then he shouldn't simply send Mindrone out to act as a movable camera, and instead be on the move, letting the bug-like Titan act as a scout.

It didn't take long to reach the spot where Mindrone had started tailing the armored construct, and as Mindrone reached the end of the hallway, and peeked around the corner, Roy was able to see a door at the end of the other hallway, and a flight of stairs going downwards.

No sign of anyone else, and so, Roy made his way towards the stairs, hoping that they would lead closer to the exit.

"AUGH!" Only for him to run face-first into solid air. "Freckin'barriermrrg." He grumbled incoherently, nursing his nose as he retreated from the barrier, and activated the black tome's scanning function, once more consciously ignoring the question of _"how did he know how to use it?"_ , as a cone of green light ran over the barred walkway, scribbles appearing wherever the light hit.

As the light turned off, the holographic screen of the Tome began showing some rather interesting data, which was also rather infuriating.

"Oioioioi, is this some kind of a freakin' tutorial dungeon?" Roy questioned with a twitching eyebrow as he read the data. Basically put, he needed to find a _"key"_ for unlocking this barrier, since he didn't have the runic knowledge for even starting to tamper with the ethereal barrier preventing his descent.

Putting the Tome into the bag, Roy looked at the door to his left. In all honesty, he doubted that the key he was meant to be looking for was in there, but, it honestly wouldn't hurt to check… with a Titan being sent first, of course. Who knew what kind of nasty surprises waited behind the wooden door.

"Mindrone, open the door," Roy ordered, and watched as Mindrone rolled its eye, before dropping down from the roof, right in front of the door, and pushed lightly, the wooden door swinging ajar with a rusty creak, revealing what seemed to be a lab of some sorts, well, by lab, he didn't mean a sterile, blindingly white room with beakers and sinks, but a stone room, with metal contraptions and arcane-looking objects scattered onto tables on the left side and the very end of the room, with the right side of the room containing bookshelves, dusty, wooden bookshelves, stacked to the brim with books of different colors.

So, in essence, a medieval mage's lab.

"… Yeah, no, not going to walk in there," he shook his head, the de-summoning of Mindrone easing the small pressure he had felt at the back of his mind. If what he remembered about the Titan inside of the green amulet he had was correct, then it'd be more useful than Mindrone was, and well, he didn't know if he could control three Titans at once, and Redcap's presence at the back of his mind was pretty small, and unlike Mindrone's, the presence felt less strong-headed.

" _ **Red Searcher**_ ," he invoked, watching with fascination as the green light faded away, revealing a rather diminutive Titan, about 60-70 centimeters tall, the titan itself being, well, to best described, an eyeball with red skin, grey leathery wings, and tentacles that ended in spiked, well, the terms _"_ _Paw_ _"_ and _"_ _flipper_ _"_ came to mind, as the Titans lone, huge red eye blinked at him, curiosity gleaming in its eye.

" _What's the task? Where are we? It smells weird."_

 **/** **Yama** **-Titan** **Scout** **\**  
 **Red Searcher**

Unlike Redcap or Mindrone, he Yama-Titan Scout's presence at the back of his head was vivid and clear. Sure, there was a small amount of the mischievousness he felt from Mindrone's bond, but that dwarfed in comparison to the curiosity he felt from the small Titan. It honestly felt similar to that of a young child's, albeit in this case, the curiosity came from a small, red creature he was sure would've given a priest a heart-attack, followed by said priest bombarding the small, in a weird way, cute Titan with Holy Water, crosses Bibles, and any other religious items that were in grabbing distance.

"Well," Roy scratched the back of his head as he began talking. "I dunno where we are, but right now, I need you to inspect that room for any traps," he pointed behind the small Titan, the grey-winged eyeball turning around to look at the room.

The small Titan nodded, well, as much as a flying eyeball with no real distinguishable head could nod, before it flew into the room, it's eye glowing a pale red light as it peered at the contents of the room, flying around and under the table in search for any secret traps, even lifting some notes and instruments up to inspect underneath them, before setting the object it held down, and moved onto the next item of intrigue.

This went on for a while, before the small critter flew back out of the room, now holding something in its tentacles, it's eye glimmering with even more interest, it's lower lid pursed in a facsimile of a smile. _"Look what I found! Try it on!"_ it trilled happily as it dropped it's loot into Roy's awaiting hand before the winged Titan perched itself on his left shoulder.

Looking down at the item in question, a leather glove of some sorts, with a plate of metal attached to the back of the hand, another smaller cured plate attached to the first one that would extend over the wrist, and smaller plates covering the fingers, each plate covered in small lines of runes, similar to those he had seen on the living armor. Looking at the glove, Roy had a few ideas on what it might do, although the presence of a small oval-shaped gem in the backhand plate was mildly confusing, perhaps it was meant as a focal point for a spell of some sorts?

Regardless, he wouldn't be putting it on until he was sure that there wouldn't be some sort of trap mechanism within the glove, like say, _"Burn the wearer to ashes, unless X"_ or something else meant to harm thieves.

Taking out and opening his Teknonomicon, Roy sat onto the floor and held the glove over the tome, pinching the leather with his index and thumb fingers, as a green light passed over it, causing the whole thing to glow green as the numerous, minuscule runes covering the item were revealed.

 **::** **Analysis complete::**

 **Item: Runic Glove (Left-hand)**

 **Magical Potency: D+**

 **Magical effects: Manipulation of Runes, allowing for Runes to be applied with but a touch. Gem on the back of the hand contains a shield-type spell. Auto-fitting for different hand-sizes**

 **Material: Leather from an unknown animal, Unknown carbon mix resembling steel, Unknown gem with medium magic-sensitivity**

"Well, that's interesting," Roy muttered, scratching his chin as he looked at the analysis. The fact that the Tome couldn't pin down the materials was a tad worrisome, but considering what else he had seen, the thought that he was still on Earth was a ridiculously optimistic one, and yes, he should be scared the shit out of that, and everything else going on, but fuck it, panicking wouldn't do him any good, so into the emotional bottle it goes, right alongside all the other bottled up emotions…

Looking at the barred stairway, Roy sighed, putting on the glove, ignoring how the runes lit up as his fingers entered the glove, the item re-sizing and molding itself to be a perfect fit for his hand.

"Might as well give it a shot…" closing the Teknonomicon, and putting it back in the bag, Roy rose up from the floor and walked over to the stairway, and held out his hand, focusing on tingling sensation he had come to associate with magic, and watched as the glove lit up.

Alright, so he could at least activate it, now to try out whether or not it could open the barrier. Deciding to try out the simplest answer first, Roy pushed his hand forward, until it met resistance from the barrier, the runes appearing in mid-air again, but this time, the entire left half of the barrier was glowing a bright blue, while the rest of the barrier was a dimmer blue.

"Alright, a'ight, we got something…" Roy noted, pushing his hand forward even harder, wondering if the barrier would simply swing aside like a door, or shatter like a panel of glass. However, the barrier didn't budge, although Roy did notice the barrier flickering for a few seconds, it didn't disperse.

Frowning, Roy backed away from the barrier, seeing that he was missing something. Judging by how only the left half had lit up, it was safe to assume that there was another item, most likely a right-hand glove, meant for accessing the other half of the barrier. It was like a door that needed not only a key card to open it, but also the correct password.

Or, if the magician behind the spell of this barrier was especially smart, there was also probably something akin to a bio-metrics scanner and a mind-checker, meant to serve as a last trap in case the magician was forcibly coerced into helping any felons, whether through mind control, or simple bodily harm.

Although he'd rather try the idea of using Redcap to simply dig through the stone _after_ he was sure that there wasn't an easier method.

"Was there anything else in the room?" Roy asked, addressing the small Titan on his shoulder, who blinked, crossing a two of its tentacles together as it took on a contemplative pose, closing its eye.

" _Hmm… well, there were a few locked drawers, nothing magical mind you,"_ It replied, prompting Roy to sigh, and walk into the room, Redcap staying outside the room, as it couldn't quite fit through the door frame, not to mention that it wouldn't be of much use in the research-filled room, so better to act as a guard dog.

With each step he took into the room, waves of dust were sent flying, truly showing how long the room had been unused, causing Roy to start coughing from the dust in the air. _'_ _Alright, this needs to go,_ _'_ he thought as he charged up his glove, and drew a _"_ _ᚻ"_ into the air, which then pulsed and sent out a burst of cold wind at the end wall, sending the assorted dust in the room flying straight out of the door, Redcap coughing profusely as the dust flew past it.

"Alright, so viking runes work, good to know," Roy sighed, glad to no longer having to deal with the dusty air in the room. At least now he had a few spell ideas, in case he had to fight, and something got past his Titans.

Picking up some of the documents that were on the desk, Roy frowned as he saw the letters were more akin to musical notes, but clearly arranged in a manner that they were forming words, but still unreadable to him, and so, he set it back down.

Since all the other documents were in the same, music note-like language, Roy crouched down to look at the drawers of the desk that was at the end of the room, and saw the metal locks laid into the wooden drawers, and tracing his right hand along the wood, he could tell that it was the hardy sort, good quality, mahogany perhaps?

A shame that he might have to break it in order to see what's inside.

Looking around the table, he saw half a dozen thin iron rods, and he took one of them, drew a small ᚳ onto a part of it, causing the section to glow orange with heat, and pressing the smaller end of it against the stone floor, the rod bent a little, before he applied an ᛁ onto the thin iron rod, causing to cool down rapidly, steam emanating from the heated up section.

His impromptu lock-pick made, Roy took out his multi-tool's knife, took in a deep breath, and slid his knife and lock-pick into the keyhole. As he began turning the pick around in the lock slowly, he heard an occasional small click, but not the big, distinct one he was looking for.

Sweat pouring down the back of his neck, the young man strained his ear to pick out the sound of his victory, only for his lock-pick to stop, becoming jammed. Not panicking, he slowly, but surely wiggled his lock-pick, trying to un-jam it without breaking it, or the lock. He released a breath he didn't realize he was holding as he managed to get his lock-pick free, before going right back to the lock-picking.

Sure, he could just open the locks with brute force, freezing the locks with Isa runes, but that would risk destroying whatever was in the drawers, which might include the other glove, or an actual key to the barrier… assuming that neither of those were in the upper floor, but why would someone put a left-handed glove in one room, and its right-hand counterpart in another room?

Hearing a soft, yet clear _"click!"_ , Roy smiled and began turning the lock with his knife, the lock turning with a rusty creak, and as it made its turn, Roy retrieved his tools and opened the drawer up. Inside of it, laid atop a red, velvet cushion, was a round metal object, about the size of a pocket watch, with seven jewels in it, arranged in a hexagonal manner, with dark purple gem in the middle, with two red, green and blue jewels, arranged so that two gems of the same color only had the purple gem between them.

Unknowing of the item's purpose, Roy felt… uncertain of whether or not he should pick it up. For all he knew, the item might be cursed with a spell that would cause his blood to freeze, or for him to be simply shocked to death, or perhaps the moment he'd pick it up, a poisonous gas was to be released into the room.

" _OOOH, Shiny! Gimme!"_ However, the small winged ball on his shoulder had no such scruples, the thick metal disk picked up by Red Searcher's tentacles before Roy could stop the small Yama-Titan.

Roy knew that he should be more worried, but if the Titan meant for detecting traps had no hesitation in picking the object up, then he supposed it was fine.

Deciding not to waste time just waiting for Red Searcher to finish its appraisal of the item, Roy began unlocking the remaining four drawers, albeit he wouldn't be pulling them open, in case there was a trap within the drawers themselves, triggering upon the drawers being pulled open without some sort of additional identification mechanism in place.

Oh sure, he might be a _tad_ too paranoid, but fuck it, he had already encountered Magic here, in the form of a golem-like sentry, an active barrier, and what would've passed in the Type Moon universe as a Mystic Code, so he'd rather be overly cautious worry-wart, rather than the corpse of a reckless adventurer.

The three remaining drawers were opened in a rather quick succession, albeit not without losses, Roy losing half of his makeshift picks to the locks, the thin rods snapping when they hit a sufficiently tight snag, forcing him to pull them out, and then begin anew with a new pick, Thankfully, his multi-tool knife hadn't been damaged in the burglary attempts.

" _Put it on!_ _"_ Red Searcher, seemingly finished with its inspection, let out a chirping sound, presenting the metal amulet to Roy, who simply raised an inquisitional brow at the little creature. While his memory of Huntik was spotty, he remembered from the wiki that unlike most other Titan classes, Yama-Titans had something similar to an Archer's Independent Action Skill, allowing them to act outside of their Master's/Seeker's direct commands, so it wasn't out of the realms of possibility for the little critter to be possibly planning on getting rid of him, and just keep on living freely, suckling on the teat that was the ambient magical energy in this castle to sustain itself.

" _Put it on! It's good for you!"_ Clearly not understanding its Seeker's hesitation, the leathery-winged creature grabbed Roy's hand and unceremoniously dropped the item it was holding onto his right hand.

"Hey, watc-WOAH MAMA!" Roy yelped in surprise as he felt a jolt of… well, the closest description he had to the feeling that he just felt was _"vigor"_. Looking it over, he couldn't see that any visual tells of the trinket doing anything. The gems weren't glowing, no glowing inscription on the item, it was just the way he found it, a metal pendant with a safety pin on its back.

Opening up his hoodie, revealing the forest green turtleneck underneath it, Roy attached the item to the inside of his shirt's breast pocket, keeping the little enchanted item in place. Taking a deep breath _(And ignoring the smell of musty old books)_ , Roy felt more vigorous, certainly not to the same levels that he had felt upon first touching the thing, but definitely more energetic than he usually did.

Drawer O-2; Lab equipment of the magical and biology sort, as in, brushes, ink bottles, needles of both the injection and the pin-prick sort, basically stuff you'd expect to find in a mages lab, although nothing that seemed to be for chemical experiments, so this might be more of an enchantment-type lab.

Alright, so drawer drei has… an honest to god key, and if that damn key actually fit into the locks of the drawers in the room… well, if Roy had a hat, then he'd fucking eat it, or rather curse Murphy, and the R.O.B who dropped him here. Of course, the key wasn't the only thing in the drawer, just the thing that caught his attention first.

No, aside from the key, the drawer had some documents, of the researching sort, he assumed, written in that same music note-like language.

The last one had more paper, albeit blank, probably in case the owner of the room had to make notes, although in that case, why wasn't the brush in the sam- ah wait, yeah, there might be a chance of ink spilling onto the blank papers if the lid on the ink bottle was faulty, or if the glass cracked.

"Well, that was a bust," Roy noted with disappointment as he set his Teknonomicon on the table, opened the magi-tech laptop and began scanning each Arcane object on the tables, including the key he found, bemusedly holding onto an optimistic belief that the key to unlocking the barrier might be one of these items.

However, there would be no rejoicing for him, as a vast majority of the enchantments on the items were of a more mundane sort, meant to protect the items from the ravages of time, from acidic properties and heat.

The tuning fork-like items were apparently some sort of stasis field generators, meant to hold specimens in place while the researcher poked and prodded at the sustained creature. The nubs at the base of the stand were essentially controls for rotating the field around, allowing for the specimen to be inspected at different angles. While interesting, these items weren't exactly the sort that he'd be easily be able to carry around, so he'd just leave them there, maybe take a few of them once he had an actual bag to carry them in.

Other than the no-rust enchantments, the knives were pretty unremarkable, just enhanced sturdiness, making the blades less likely to chip or bend. Still, good enough for him to take them, in case he ever had to cut himself loose or something. Thankfully, the sheathes for the knives were easily found.

Sadly, the key had nothing but the no-rust enchantment. No _"This opens every lock in the castle"_ or anything that useful.

Now carrying four enchanted knives, Roy turned his attention to the other desk's drawers, and sighed as he inserted the key into the lock of the top-most drawer. Might as well test if the key worked for these locks. Hell, who knows, maybe each lock here was of the same… ah, who was he kidding, considering the nature of this place, at best, this key would only work for this room, and be completely useless outside of it.

However, at least the lock unlocked with a smooth click, as did the three other locks. Too bad that they only contained more documents, some sort of herbs he wouldn't be touching with even a three meters long stick, and more of those iron bars, 15 to be exact, which he quite happily took and stored in the side-pocket of the Teknonomicon bag.

"Well, this has been an utter disappointment..." Roy sighed as he exited the room, already hoping that the upper floor would be more generous with good loot.

* * *

 **AN: So...yeah, this is a half-finished chapter, y'know, to keep some things open, in case I decide to change things.**

 **That said, I am working on the next chapter of Divergent Strife... and mulling some ideas for the next chapter of Quincy DxD over in my head.**

* * *

 _ **Question of the Chapter:**_

 **Q1: So, assuming that if I were to continue this story, who would you be interested in seeing Roy hook up with? And yes, I know that Tales of the Abyss doesn't have all that many chicks to begin with, but...amuse me with what you can come up with.**


	11. Zestiria X SMT

**AN: Hi folks! So yeah, I know that a lot of my readers don't really follow this, but eh, I played Strange Journey a bit, and began watching Zestiria the X a while back, so here we are.**

"Speech"

 _"Demon talk"_

 _'Thought'_

 **«Data»**

* * *

He was...falling, or at least it felt like it, but since everything around him was a black, inky void, devoid of light, he couldn't be sure.

He didn't know how long he was _"falling"_ , but eventually, he came to a sudden stop, his body hitting against a flat surface with a wet splat, and he could feel his body squish in on itself, as if it was made from silly putty, but for some reason, he couldn't feel any pain, no broken bones, no nothing.

And then, he was lifted up, not by hands, nor by his own strength, so fuck, some mystic mumbo jumbo. And speaking of magic, just like that, there was a full-body mirror in front of him, showing him all of his naked _"glory"_ , pot-belly, hair-covered limbs and gut, a thick fuzz covering a majority of his groin.

All in all, he wasn't someone you'd say was in good shape, like, _"Be comfortable going without a t-shirt in summer"_ -shape, but he also wasn't obese, just slightly chubby from a lifestyle that mostly consisted of sitting down, with a weekly walk around the neighborhood with the dog.

And then, the... _"Magic"_ started happening.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" The young man screamed out in surprise as he lost control of his body, his arms swinging out to his sides, and his legs spread apart, his current pose resembling that of the vitruvian man. All he could move was his mouth and eyes, the rest of the 20-year old young man's body locked in its spread position, forced to stare into the mirror before him, as if whatever force was in play here _wanted_ him to be unable to look away from what was to come.

He could only watch on abject horror at the mirror as the sensation of being like silly putty came back, and he watched as his hands began shrinking, no, more like being pushed into a specific mold by numerous, invisible hands. Fat and muscle moved around and compressed into a more appealing and healthy shape, a string of curses launched from him as bones were twisted around, shortened and shrunken.

As his hands were pushed into slimmer, more graceful mold, he looked down and saw a similar change happening to his legs, and that the hair on his legs was fading away, almost evaporating, leaving behind smooth legs that were pushed into a different shape.

However, his attention was turned away from the changes happening to his limbs as he felt hands pressing onto his jaw, and before he knew it, his jawline was being pushed, his cheekbones rising higher, his eyes changing their shape as the phantasmal limbs worked over his face, his vision blurred as he screamed out in pain and horror from the sensation of his head and face being rearranged like it was nothing, small parts of his face being pushed into different spots, nose grabbed on and squished while being pushed, goatee being grabbed onto and pulled off like a prop.

As the hands withdrew from his face, the young man saw a foreign face staring back at him, and yet he couldn't deny that it was his. A small, petite button-like nose where his big, potato-like one had previously been, the bridge of his nose, which he had broken in a scuffle when he was in middle school, was now intact.

His boxy jawline, now smoothed into a gentle v-curve, like the bottom of a heart symbol. His lips, previously between a mighty beard and mustache, now looked smooth, plump, bereft of any facial hair.

And his eyes, well, the changes weren't as drastic as what had happened to the rest of his face, but… they were certainly rounder than what they had been, and gone were the bags of exhaustion.

However, it seemed like the hands were done with giving him time to inspect the changes, as his shoulders began caving in, two more hands wrapping around his throat and began pushing as well, a gurgle escaping from his throat, which slowly shifted in tone and pitch from a gravely and deep one to a fairer and higher one, never losing the undertone of panic and fear.

As the hands retracted, the panicking youth began gasping for air, greedily gulping down as much as he could, and looking at the mirror, he couldn't help but feel sick at the sight. He now looked like someone had taken his corpse, and that of a high-school girl, and stitched them in a Dr. Frankenstein-esque manner, and somehow found a way to hide the stitches.

He shuddered as he felt numerous hands on his gut and his sides. The hands on his gut grabbed on tight and began pulling, hard, until four distinct blobs of fat were in their respective grasps. The two lower arms began dragging the blobs of fat in their grasp to the sides, while the two other arms moved upwards, two more phantasmal hands joining in on the molding and shaping process, kneading the orbs of fat on his chest, foreign, yet pleasurable pulses of electricity racing across the bound man's nervous system, causing him to bite down on his lower lip, and try to avert his gaze away from the forming breasts, and the _"other"_ reaction he was getting from the pleasurable signals his brain was getting.

He could see his waist being pushed inwards, and his hips being popped, giving him a rather...well, truthfully, it was pretty attractive hourglass figure, an opinion his body certainly had no problem exclaiming.

"EEP!" He squeaked in surprise as he felt his ass, now plump and heart-shaped, groped and fondled by the hands, which was sending mixed signals to his brains. And adding to those signals were two pairs of phantasmal hands that began groping the C-cups on his chest, one pair fondling the flesh, while another began flicking, pinching and twisting the sensitive nipples.

"H-Hey, s-s-STOP THAT!" He shouted, a blush on his face, flustered by the enhanced sensitivity of his body, and the new sensations he was feeling, trying his best to ignore the reaction the phantasmal assault was having on the last remaining bit of manliness… Which wasn't exactly the easiest task, considering that he couldn't turn his head, at all, so all he could do to avoid staring at the raging stiffie he had was look at _any other_ part of his body in the mirror.

Obviously, he avoided his inflated chest and re-structured face, as those… well, that would be counter-productive, and let's just leave it at that.

Too bad that there was nothing he could do about the prodding and fondling of the phantasmal hands, aside from try and tell them to fuck off, but that was useless.

He wished the damn thing would just go awa-OH SHIT, NO!

And before the feminized youth could regret his misinterpreted thoughts, the invisible hands got to work, and he could only watch on in horror as his _"sausage and meat balls"_ were pushed up into him, until there was only a slit, a tight snatch, and he looked like nothing _but_ a she. He could only whimper as he felt the more changes happening at his groin area. A cavity, for new organs, was forming inside of her body, and the confused and scared Brit could see it all in his mind's eye. First came the uterus, then came the ovaries, and finally, his pelvis bone expanding its gap, to accommodate… _her_ new reproductive organs.

And now with transformation done, everything faded to black…

* * *

 **«Beginning Download…»**

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 **«0%…»**

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 **«20%... Installed…»**

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 **«45%…Compiling Comp_mem Data…»**

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 **«70%… installation, in-progress…»**

…

 **«96%…Download Complete!»**

…

 **«̛̰̦̝̼̺̮"̢̙͙͖A̵̗̟͉̭̗̲̮̤͠ǹ̹̱̣̙͚̼̪͠͡ͅd̯͔̞̝́͡ ̸̢̥́ń̛̲̭̲͙͍o͔̲͚͞w͖͎͖,̤͎̱ ҉̛̲͍͚̮̀S̶̳̻̥u̺̱̩̥̦̖͘r̴҉͉̤̻̼ͅv̸͔̘̗̀̕ͅi̧̹̲̼̲̼͚͔v̧̜̩̤̱̫̤ẹ̸̫͓̝͚"̱̟»̮̫̫͟**

…

* * *

' _Gotta get away! Gotta G.T.F.O ASAP!'_

The sound of twigs being snapped, leaves crunched, and heavy, distressed panting could be heard in a forest, as the evening dusk began to settle, a young woman in an ill-fitting attire consisting of a dark green camo-patterned hoodie and black slacks, and beige boots, was running for her life, amber eyes jumping all over the place, in an effort to avoid her pursuers.

He had to get away, couldn't let them catch him! She didn't want to die, dammit! He'd survive, no matter what! HE, BRYN AINSLEY WOULD _**NOT**_ LET HIS LIFE END HERE!

However, the youth forgot to look down, as her foot got caught in an upturned root, causing the dark-haired youth to fall. She wasted no time in getting up, but he could already hear that it was too late, as mocking laughter came from behind him, accompanied by the stench of sweat.

Taking a shaky breath, Bryn turned towards the source of the noise, drawing out a hunting knife from the tanned sheath attached to his belt. He wasn't trained in using it, sure, but what the fuck else did he need to do but get in close, and STAB THEM IN THE FUCKIN' THROAT!?

….Wow, the stress really was getting to him.

And more stress was about to be piled up, as three men came out of the woodworks, each armed with weapons that looked a bit damaged, but still sharp and deadly.

"A'ight, nowhere to run now, lassie," the lead man, a cocky smirk across his scarred face, the two other bandits, One short and chubby, one tall and lanky, both armed with swords, the chubby one also having a round shield, both bemusedly leering at the downed prey before them.

"Now then lassie, if you would be so kind as come with us, I'm sure that we can return you to yer family… for a certain prize." Bryn blinked in confusion at the bandit's words.

What the bloody hell was he on abou- _Ooooh_ , he thought that she belonged to some family he could squeeze ransom money out of.

And as the bandit neared, reaching to grab him, Bryn's eyes hardened, right arm snaking forward, the knife aimed at the man's throat. Bryn knew that only death would await him if he couldn't get away!

However, the man's instincts, hardened through the battles he'd been through, screamed at him, barely getting out of the blades path, but not unscathed, the blade plunging into his right shoulder, cutting through the cloth, and into the flesh.

 **«** **Parameters met** **…** **Summoning Program Initialized…** **»**

Circles upon circles of code began emanating from Bryn's phone, surrounding the transformed youth, the sight giving the bandits pause, one even looking at her like s/he had grown another head.

 **«Beginning Materialization… Sufficient Magnetite replacement recorded.** **»**

Another circle, this one more intricate, like a magic circle appeared before her, the already frightened men jumping away from it.

Clumps of pixels rose from the circle, forming into a serpentine silhouette, although Bryn could faintly make out what seemed like limbs pressed close to the creature's body. S/He knew that in this situation, the logical thing would be to be scared, and yet, nothing but an excited, vengeful smile could be seen on the transformed youth's face as his grip loosened.

"H-Hey, get her, before she-!" The lead bandit ordered, having gathered his wits, only to be cut off as the circle flashed, as did the silhouette, forcing the bandits to avert their eyes from the painfully bright light, and the whirlwind that came with it.

As the light faded away, the bandits, their courage gone, took a collective step back from the unnatural creature before them.

"W-What th-GRRAARRGHH!" The bandit's question turned into a bloody gurgle, before he fell down, his throat torn out, the culprit, a mix between a dog and a weasel, with a long, white furred body, and a black head, now growling and snarling at the other bandits, it's eyes glowing an angry red.

 _ **Inugami**_ , Bryn's mind filled in as s/he took a confident step forward, his smile widening even further as the two remaining bandits took a collective fearful step back, the action provoking a feeling of exhilaration from the transformed youth, adrenaline, sheer joy and excitement pumping through his veins.

S/He didn't know why or how the Japanese demon had appeared, but now, it was time for some pest extermination.

"…Mush, Inugami." The order was simple, yet effective as the Japanese Yokai struck at the bandits, dodging their hap-hazard swings as it proceeded to sink its fangs into the tender meat of their necks, puncturing arteries and crushing windpipes, as the two remaining bandits fell onto the ground.

And like that, it was all over, and Bryn was left with three corpses on the ground, and a floating, black-headed dog spirit looking at her like a puppy, it's tail wagging happily.

Bryn on the other hand, was panting, his legs shaking as the reality of the situation was crashing on him. He, had just summoned a demon, and then ordered the deaths of two men, he was in a strange world, alone, turned into a woman, and nothing but the clothes on her back, a hunting knife, a multi-tool, and his phone.

Sure, they seemed to be nothing but a small bandit group, but fuck, for all he knew, they served some big bandit lord, who'd then come after her for killing those three, and with her ability to summon demons now, she'd be turned into a weapon, or even worse a breeding…NO NO NONONONO **NONONO!**

He was brought out of his head-space as she felt a wet tongue lock her cheek, the Inugami looking worryingly at him. Looking at himself, Bryn saw that he had in her slight panic attack, fallen to her knees.

"Ah, right, thanks for saving me," Bryn said, tenderly patting the dog spirit's head, the Beast-race demon preening at the motion, leaning it's head against it's Master's.

Bryn looked at the corpses, shoving the fact that they were human to the back of his mind. He might be able to salvage some supplies from them, maybe a map or something so she'd at least know where he was. Who knows, maybe she was in a world based off of a story he had read.

Standing back up, he walked towards the cadavers, Inugami right behind her. _'_ _This is justified, they would have done worse things to you, but now they're dead, so to the survivor, go the spoils,_ _' Bryn_ thought to himself as he reached the duo of cadavers, and began looting the one who had been wielding a shield and sword.

The deceased dummy had a belt with pouches on him, clear for Bryn to see, so she unclasped it, and took it off, before she began patting for any hidden pouches. On the inside of the jacket, he found a small pouch, which judging by the clinking sound, held coins in it. Finding nothing else, Bryn turned the cadaver over, finding a dagger sheathed horizontally.

With the first cadaver looted, he moved onto the second one, repeating the process, netting him another pouch of coins, a bit lighter than the previous one, another belt with pouches, heavier than the previous one, another dagger, and a knapsack, which contained, three sleeping bags, rations, some bottles with some sort of potions in them, and a map.

' _Alright, now let's see wh…_ at the hell, I'm not even on Earth, no of course not, that'd be just too easy, ugh…" Bryn massaged his temples as he looked down at the map, which clearly wasn't that of a country on Earth. Oh sure, he wasn't exactly an ace when it came to geography, but he could tell that this wasn't a map depicting any real-life continent, or country, unless there was a country named Glenwood.

Inugami barked, prompting Bryn to look up from the map, to see the dog spirit nudging a sack of money towards him, and looking towards the axe-wielder's cadaver, the transformed youth could see that while he had been looking at the map, her non-human compatriot had been looting the corpse.

"Good demon," Bryn complimented, shuffling the bag of money into the knapsack, along with the rest of the loot, save for a single pouch belt, which she put on, taking the axe and shield. While he might not be combat-trained, the shield would come in handy, not to mention the axe was lighter than the sword, so he wouldn't tire out as quickly.

" _WARK!_ _"_ the Inugami barked, laying itself atop Bryn's shoulders.

Paying no mind to the cadavers, Bryn adjusted the knapsack and began walking to the left. He'd eventually run into another person, or civilization.

* * *

 **AN: That's all folks!... and yeah, I re-used the TG transformation, but eh, it works. And as for why I decided to turn the SI here into a chick? Well, just something I felt like doing, and because Zestiria has a lot of allusions to Arthurian lore, and well, I don't think I need to explain what someone capable of summoning Demons would be called.**

 **A pic of the SI can be found on my deviantart.**

 **Also, my F/SN and RWBY fic's first chapter is...60-80% done, so y'know, Wait and Hope...**


End file.
